Rich or poor? New faultline in U.N. climate talks

ACCRA (Reuters) - Rich countries are pushing developing nations with the strongest economies to do far more to combat climate change, opening a faultline between rich and poor in U.N. talks on global warming.

The European Union, for instance, says that some developing nations such as Singapore, Argentina and some OPEC states have grown richer than some developed nations which have to shoulder the burden of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

"We want some of the developing nations to do more," said Brice Lalonde of France, who led the EU delegation at August 21-27 talks among 160 nations on a broader new climate treaty to be agreed by the end of 2009.

"There needs to be more differentiation among developing nations," he said.

The current fight against climate change is led by 37 developed nations in the Kyoto Protocol who have agreed to cut emissions by five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Developing nations have no targets.

Many poor nations, which negotiate in a bloc at U.N. talks, strongly oppose any attempt by the rich to redefine the boundary between rich and poor, seeing it as a diversion from a need for the rich to make ever deeper cuts in emissions.

"The (1992 U.N. Climate) Convention did not provide for differentiation between developing countries," said Byron Blake of Antigua and Barbuda, chair of a group of more than 130 developing nations in Accra known as the G77 and China.

Any such talk would be a "diversion of effort", he told Reuters. Rich nations have to agree deeper cuts in greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, to slow impacts such as heatwaves, floods, desertification and rising seas.

The European Union, Japan and Australia are among nations that say it is unfair to expect the rich group from almost two decades ago to keep on taking the lead. Kyoto groups all rich nations except the United States, which rejected the pact.

NEW WORLD ORDER

Since the early 1990s, non-Kyoto countries such as Mexico and South Korea have joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, grouping rich nations.

Non-Kyoto nations such as Argentina or Qatar have higher per capita incomes than insiders Russia or some eastern EU members. And by some World Bank yardsticks of purchasing power, non-Kyoto Singapore has higher per capita income than the United States.

"Most developing countries are not in favor of differentiation," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. "I can't predict where that debate is going to go."

A new treaty will demand deeper cuts from developed nations by 2020 and only "actions" by developing nations to slow the rise of their emissions.

"It's a real chicken and egg situation," said Angela Anderson of the Washington-based Pew Environment Group, with both rich and poor wanting the other to promise more. "It is a big divide."

Developed nations say limited funds must focus on the poorest, such as in sub-Saharan Africa.

But Blake said rich nations should focus on keeping past promises to help the developing nations, which have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution and now need to burn energy to end poverty.

"Nations with binding commitments have not, I repeat have not, delivered on those commitments," he said.

Some nations outside Kyoto are promising to do more. South Korea says, for instance, that it plans to set a binding target for emissions and wants to act as a bridge between the developing and developed nations.

And South Africa has laid out a scenario that could mean a peak in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020-25.

Splitting up developing nations "is going to be an issue for further discussions," said Harlan Watson, head of the U.S. delegation.

Developing nations are unanimous in saying they cannot be expected to do more when the United States has no goals. Both candidates to succeed President George W. Bush, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, say they will do more.

(Editing by Diana Abdallah)