How rich countries killed Kyoto and Copenhagen in Barcelona

The World Development Movement condemns rich countries at the Barcelona climate negotiations that ended today for ‘killing Kyoto and Copenhagen’.

The anti-poverty campaigners believe that rich countries are talking down the possibility of legally binding deal at Copenhagen, and at the same time are refusing to make the emissions cuts already agreed as part of the Kyoto protocol. They say that rich countries are taking the uncertainty over the Copenhagen deal as a cynical opportunity to abolish the Kyoto protocol.

Tim Jones, climate policy officer at the World Development Movement said: “The fact that rich countries are trying to wriggle out of their emissions reductions targets under the Kyoto agreement and have essentially quashed any hope for a legally binding and fair deal at Copenhagen is absolutely disgraceful.

"It looks as though they are trying to kill Kyoto and Copenhagen deals. Developing countries are absolutely right to be incredibly angry. Developed countries that have caused climate change are trying to push the burden of tackling and coping with it onto poorer countries. This is unbelievably immoral.

“The extent of the rich world’s climate debt to developing nations is staggering. And if rich countries continue to ignore and actively side-line the issue of climate debt, they will be to blame for condemning the poorest people in the world to unknown suffering caused by climate change that they did not cause.”