Bali conference: China, Japan, Canada skirmish over developing nations’ share of emission reductions

As opening formalities at the UN Conference on Climate Change at Bali give way to substantive negotiations, skirmishes have already erupted between the largest polluters over how to share the burden of emission reduction.

India and China have said that they cannot afford, as developing nations, to take on any emissions reduction goals; developed nations, led by Japan and Canada, have been pressing for India and China to assume a share of the burden.

The negotiations are taking place as nations seek a means to extend the Kyoto Treaty. A weakness of Kyoto was that the United States did not ratify the treaty, while India and China were exempted from its provisions. Only Russia and Japan, among the top five polluters, were bound by the treaty.

A further skirmish is expected to occur over the calculation of emissions, and the extent to which deforestation – which releases carbon into the atmosphere – will be counted in emissions and reduction targets.Deforestation in Indonesia makes that country the world’s firth-worst polluter according to calculations that take deforestation into account.

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