Kyoto proponents win first round

After the climate conference agreed on the procedure for further negotiations, the Danish hosts re-launched UN climate talks on Thursday. A British newspaper calls it a "victory for the developing world."
Rie Jerichow - 17/12/2009 - The Copenhagen negotiations broke the deadlock on Thursday and are now moving forward on a two-track basis that maintains the integrity of the Kyoto protocol.

A"victory for the developing world", writes British daily The Guardian, concluding that rich nations have "abandoned an attempt to kill off the Kyoto protocol in a last-gasp effort to salvage a deal at the climate change summit in Copenhagen".

Several countries – including China – have expressed ambitions to resuscitate the talks despite huge differences over levels of emissions cuts, financing and monitoring, the newspaper reports.

"We are not giving up. The irony is that on substance we have had considerable movement in the last few days. For the talks to be in this state simply over matters of procedure rather than substance is immensely disappointing," a UK official says, according to The Guardian.

"We have lost a day and a half. I don't want to point fingers. We must get talks back on a solid substantive track by the time the world leaders meet tomorrow," the Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh said.

Algerian envoy Kamel Djemouai, who speaks for 53 African nations, is not so enthusiastic:

"No deal is better than to have a bad deal, particularly for Africa.... To get to a bad deal with our heads of state here is quite difficult for anybody to accept here," the envoy says, according to Bloomberg.

Da UNFCCC