-AP   As delegates gather in South Africa to plot the next big push against climate change, Western governments are saying it’s time to move beyond traditional distinctions between industrial and developing countries and get China and other growing economies to accept legally binding curbs on greenhouse gases. It will be a central theme for the 20,000 national officials, lobbyists, scientists and advocates gathering under U.N. auspices in the coastal city of Durban...

The climate change negotiations are deadlocked because of a basic difference of approach. Developing countries are calling for enhanced implementation of existing agreements, while developed countries are insisting on a new agreement that would shift a large share of their obligations to the shoulders of developing countries, particularly the ‘newly emerging economies’ like India and China. The European Union is calling for negotiations on a new agreement to replace the...

The 17 major emitters are making a last ditch attempt to resolve the impasse over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol and the shape of a future global legal deal to tackle climate change. With a fortnight to the UN-sponsored climate meet at Durban, the Major Economies Forum is meeting in New York this week to hammer out a working compromise.  In the past, the US State Department-sponsored Major Economies Forum...

Global climate strategy needs a new storyline. The original United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (“Plan A”) was signed almost 20 years ago, but lacked the specifics to drive real action. The Kyoto Protocol aimed to resolve this by curbing emissions from the industrialised world, but the US refused to play its part (Plan B). Just as Kyoto came into effect in 2005, the world was changing, with...

India, China, Brazil and South Africa — the BASIC group of developing countries — on Tuesday sought to bridge their differences and strike a common position ahead of this month's climate change conference in Durban, calling on the West to ensure the extension of the Kyoto Protocol as well as step up financial and technological assistance to developing countries. The Durban conference, they said in a joint statement, “should achieve a...