The specter of failure loomed at the UN climate summit Monday as an African negotiator said the talks were at “code red” while China accused wealthy nations of trickery. China, India and other developing nations blocked UN climate talks Monday, bringing negotiations to a halt with their demand that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. Representatives from developing countries — a bloc of 135 nations — said they refused to participate in any working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved. The move was a setback for the Copenhagen talks, which were already faltering over long-running disputes between rich and poor nations over emissions cuts and financing for developing countries to deal with climate change. The dispute came as the conference entered its second week, and only days before over 100 world leaders including President Barack Obama were scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen. “Nothing is happening at this moment,” Zia Hoque Mukta, a delegate from Bangladesh, told The Associated Press. He said developing countries have demanded that conference president Connie Hedegaard bring the industrial nations' emissions targets to the top of the agenda before talks can resume. Poor countries, supported by China, say Hedegaard had raised suspicion that the conference was likely to kill the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which limited carbon emissions by wealthy countries and imposed penalties for failing to meet those targets. Poor countries want to extend that treaty because it commits rich nations to emissions cuts but doesn't make any legally binding requirements on developing countries. The United States would never support that, since it balked at signing Kyoto in the first place over concerns that China, India and other major greenhouse gas emitters were not required to take action. While environment ministers haggled behind closed doors, some of the biggest players gave a glimpse of the rift to be bridged between rich and poor nations when some 120 leaders gather for the climax Friday. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose country is the industrialized world's biggest per-capita polluter, fretted over the possibility of failure without compromise all round. “There's a big risk that we will have conflicting views between developed and developing countries,” Rudd said in Australia. “And there is always a risk of failure here.” Rudd said it would be difficult to reach a “consensus up the middle” given the often opposed and entrenched positions of developed and developing nations. Campaigners were equally blunt, with Greenpeace saying the summit had five days “to avert climate chaos” and that a legally binding outcome was vital for the survival of millions of people.
