Small nations bullied at Copenhagen: WikiLeaks

CANCUN: The Wikileaks cablegate hit the climate talks at Cancun as well with leaked documents showing how the US and EU had attempted to manipulate talks in favour of the Copenhagen Accord by offering monetary carrots to small countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change and cutting aid to those who dared to oppose them.

Several countries had talked of dirty tricks played by rich countries even at Copenhagen in December 2009 but the game seems to have got dirtier after the infamous Copenhagen Accord was signed at the Danish capital but could not fly with some countries ensuring that it never became a formal UN document.

US and even the UN secretary general pushed countries to associate with the accord which diluted the differentiation between rich and poor countries embedded in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

But emerging economies China, India, Brazil and South Africa took a stronger position post-Copenhagen. They associated themselves with the accord they had negotiated but did not allow it to become part of the official UN negotiating text.