We haven't heard much in New Zealand about the progress (or lack of) in the negotiations on an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. We have heard mumblings that it has not been going well. This seems to be confirmed by today's Financial Times which suggests that the G8 outcome has set progress back further. This si a real concern as this problem can only be solved by global action. We are spending all our time in New Zealand worrying about how to reduce 0.2% of global emissions when we should be far more worried about an international solution.
The prospect of an international agreement on climate change appears as remote as ever after a week of frantic negotiations in which a US concession met a rebuff from developing countries.
Negotiators were yesterday trying to regroup for the next stages of the United Nations negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto protocol, the main provisions of which expire in 2012.
In six weeks, they will meet in Ghana to resume talks on the shape of a global agreement which must be finished at a UN meeting in December 2009 in Copenhagen. But the deep divisions between the G8 and rapidly emerging economies that became apparent in Japan will hinder progress.
