China And Developing Nations React Angrily to U.S. Inaction on Climate

Three days after a top Obama administration official said the U.S. will not enact a carbon cap-and-trade bill this year, China and a group of developing nations accused America and other developing countries of trying to “sabotage” upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen. Yu Qingtai, China’s special representative on climate negotiations, said the U.S. wants to scrap the existing Kyoto Protocols and replace them not with another climate treaty, but with non-binding agreements in which individual countries set their own greenhouse gas reduction targets. “The reason we are not making progress is the lack of political will by Annex 1 [industrialized] countries,” said Yu. “There is a concerted effort to fundamentally sabotage the Kyoto protocol.” Yu made his comments at preliminary climate talks now being held in Bangkok. His remarks were echoed by the Sudanese chair of the G77, the U.N.’s largest organization of developing states, who accused wealthy countries of “a total rejection of their historical responsibilities” to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Their remarks come after Carol Browner, President Obama’s top climate and energy official, bluntly said at a conference that congressional passage of a climate bill before Copenhagen is “not going to happen.”