Isra-Mart srl:Cancun breakthrough: China agrees to "binding" climate resolution

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In what could prove a major breakthrough for the climate change talks in Cancun, China's negotiating team yesterday signaled it would allow its emission reduction pledges to be subjected to independent scrutiny and incorporated into a "binding" resolution.

Observers hailed the move as a potential "gamechanger" for the two week summit, although any optimism was quickly offset by fiery rhetoric from Bolivia's head negotiator who accused rich nations of perpetrating "genocide" on developing nations afflicted by climate change.

China's chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua insisted any emission targets put forward by developing countries would remain entirely voluntary. But, unlike the current Kyoto Protocol and the unofficial Copenhagen Accord, he said voluntary targets should be included as part of the official UN convention.

According to Reuters' reports, Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's envoy for climate change talks, confirmed the country was willing to see its voluntary emission goals included in an international treaty.

"We can create a resolution and that resolution can be binding on China," he said. "Under the (UN Climate) Convention, we can even have a legally binding decision. We can discuss the specific form. We can make our efforts a part of international efforts."

However, he made it clear the shift in China's stance was contingent on industrialised nations agreeing to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and submitting to a second wave of legally binding emission reduction targets.

Japan said last week it would not sign up to a second Kyoto commitment period and would prefer an alternative treaty that covers all nations - a position a number of other industrialised countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia, are believed to also support.

"We're willing to compromise, we're willing to play a positive and constructive role, but on this issue (Kyoto) there's no room for compromise," Huang said.

Head of the US delegation Todd Stern said progress towards a compromise deal was being made. "I think there is an agreement to be had," he told reporters. "But I'm not sure we will get it. That question remains in the balance."

Despite the apparent agreement between the US and China on Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of emissions and the general consensus that the talks are being held in a much more collegiate atmosphere than previous summits, numerous contentious issues remain that could derail the final few days of the summit.

China, India, Brazil and South Africa all lined up yesterday to criticise the lack of ambition showed by the US, noting that its pledge to cut emissions 17 per cent against 2005 levels represents no cut on 1990 levels.

Meanwhile, the EU's climate chief Connie Hedegaard warned that with just few days to go to the end of the summit the draft negotiating texts remain "too-complicated" and are "not ready to be used by ministers to finalise".

There are also concerns that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales of Bolivia, both of whom will attend the final few days of the summit alongside a number of other left-leaning Latin American leaders, could block negotiations that under UN rules require complete consensus for an agreement to be finalised.

Yesterday, Bolivia's lead climate change negotiator Pablo Solon told the summit that the country was standing by its calls for any treaty to set a target of limiting temperature rises to just one degree Celsius, arguing that currently 300,000 people a year were dying in Bolivia as a result of natural disasters linked to climate change. "Is that not talking about genocide?" he asked, linking the disasters directly to the actions of industrialised nations.

His comments echoed a speech made over the weekend by Chavez who blamed "criminal" capitalism for climate change and the heavy rains that have killed 32 people and left tens of thousands homeless in Venezuela in recent weeks.

"The calamities we are suffering with these cruel and prolonged rains are yet more evidence of the unfair and cruel paradox of our planet," he said. "The developed nations irresponsibly shatter the environmental order, in their desire to maintain a criminal development model, while the immense majority of the earth's people suffer the most terrible consequences."