I received this email from the Nicholas Institute at Duke with a link to the blog post below. Sounds a lot like “inside baseball” to me, but some of you might understand the details.
Email:
Negotiations at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen have been
suspended, according to Prasad Kasibhatla, a Nicholas School faculty
member who is among more than 20 people attending the conference as part
of a contingent from the Duke University community.
Blog post:
I am inside my first meeting session at COP15 – a session called ‘Contact Group on Annex I Parties Emission Reductions’.
Basically, this seems to be a group negotiating what Annex I
commitments should be post-Kyoto. But as soon as the session started
the Australian delegate announced that he was hearing that the
G77+China had suspended negotations in other contact groups (I am
guessing the one discussing long range targets), and therefore
suggested that this contact group be suspended too. Some countries like
Russia supported Australia, while others like China and India stated
that this contact group continue as it was at the core of the COP15
negotiations. Finally, the chair suspended the negotiations of this
group as well.High drama or is this how the UN typically works?