Stormy weather and rifts at climate conference

A CLIMATE change summit in South Africa opened amid storm chaos and major rifts between some of the world’s biggest polluters.

The 17th Conference of the Parties summit represents the last chance for developed nations to sign up to a second term of the Kyoto Protocol, which specifies legal limits for their carbon dioxide emissions, before it expires at the end of next year.

As delegates arrived in Durban yesterday torrential rain waterlogged parts of the conference venue.

Speaking at the opening session of the talks, Christiana Figueres, the UN’s chief climate change official, urged all parties to be flexible, and quoted South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela in telling them: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

But within hours of the summit’s start, most of the major players made clear their unwillingness to negotiate.

Lang Banks, head of communications for WWF Scotland, at the conference, said: “I’m hoping the weather here in Durban right now is not a guide to how the UN climate talks will pan out.

“However, the rain, thunder and lightning of today do certainly seem to match the low expectations many seem to have had until now.”