Doha talks to overshoot Friday deadline

DOHA: The ongoing UN negotiations on climate change are all set to stretch beyond the scheduled deadline of Friday, thanks to the developed world, which has refused to deliver on finance, equity, adaptation and even extending the Kyoto Protocol’s shelf life beyond 2013—a pledged that was made last year.

And the bid to evolve a consensus looks at least 48 hours away.

Here, the prickly negotiations stretched in more than half a dozen meeting rooms through Thursday evening, with developing countries pushing hard to extract commitments from the developed world. But the US and European Union (EU) kept singing the same tune that there was nothing else that could be done on financing the developing nations, or helping them adapt to the issue of equity in reducing emissions that had not been done already and the process should be summarily junked.

The frustration peaked when the Philippines’ lead negotiator Naderev Saño broke down in his speech on Thursday evening before the gathered 194 countries.