UN-Truth

So, the U.S. got out of the way, and joined a consensus resolution at the Climate Change Conference in Bali that calls for two years of negotiations on something to replace the emissions reductions targets contained in the 1997 Kyodo Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The consensus resolution, which the U.S. eventually joined after being cajoled and booed by the assembled delegates, also calls for monitored technology transfers to assist developing countries voluntarily curb their pollution emissions that cause global warming.

The extra last day followed an earlier accusation by former Vice-President Al Gore that the U.S. was principally responsible for obstructing progress at the conference, an all-night marathon negotiating session, recriminations from China, and a near-breakdown at the podium by conference chairman Yvo de Boer.

Now, diplomats should try these tactics in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, which has been blocked for more than a decade by disagreements about which disarmament negotiations should be next (the U.S. is still refusing China’s request to address the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space at the same time as a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty that the U.S. wants).

The difference is that at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva the U.S. still has a few European and Latin American allies, while in Bali the European Union made its differences with the U.S. public.

Filed under: Environment, US in UN