Developing countries accused Japan on Wednesday of reneging on promises to extend the fight against global warming beyond 2012 and said the talks in Mexico would fail unless Tokyo backed down. Japan, which is among almost 40 rich nations curbing greenhouse gas emissions under the UN's Kyoto Protocol until 2012, said it will not extend the cuts beyond 2012 unless countries like the United States and China also join in.
"I am afraid that, without concessions on the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement in Cancun is not going to fly," said Abdulla Alsaidi of Yemen, the chair of the group of 77 and China, a collection of developing nations at the summit. He said he hoped the European Union, a main supporter of Kyoto alongside Japan, would persuade Tokyo to soften its position at the meeting. Nearly 200 nations are trying to draft a package of measures meant to help avert floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
"We are hopeful that they will persuade our good friends the Japanese to reconsider accepting (an extension), without which there will be no successful outcome for Cancun," he told Reuters at the talks in a Caribbean resort. Under Kyoto, industrialised countries are meant to agree to an extension before its first period runs out in 2012, leaving little time if Cancun fails. The Kyoto Protocol underpins carbon markets, which want assurances of prices beyond 2012 to guide investments in renewable energies and a shift from fossil fuels.
"Japan is not trying to kill Kyoto, but it should be reborn in a single, more effective, legally binding treaty," said Akira Yamada, deputy director general for global issues at the Japanese Foreign Ministry. The European Union and other Kyoto backers also want others to join in beyond 2012, but have been less outspoken.
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