'Berlin Wall' Climate Divide Looms over Lima

As UN climate talks enter their final days, the "Berlin Wall" that has for years divided rich and poor countries once again looms large as negotiators race to write a draft of a global deal that is meant to tear it down.

At the root of the problem is a 1992 U.N. climate Convention splits the world into rich and poor nations and obliges only the rich to cut emissions.  Since then, however, nations such as Singapore or Mexico have grown rich but are still deemed "poor".

In Lima, representatives of 192 countries are trying to craft a new accord that will hold developed nations responsible for their past emissions but that will also put on the hook some emerging economies that will emit most carbon in future.

Last month progress was made to break down barriers between rich and poor – defined in UN jargon as annex 1 and non-annex 1 - when the United States and China announced joint action to curb emissions across a divide sometimes called a "Berlin Wall".

Countries are grappling with how to redefine these distinctions in a draft deal to be finalized in Paris next year that is meant to limit more heat waves, floods, desertification and rising sea levels.
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U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern, who has also spoken in the past of a "Berlin Wall, said retaining divisions defined in 1992 was politically "untenable" when the world economy has changed so radically.

Yvo de Boer, a former U.N. climate chief, said the wall between rich and poor started to crumble at talks in Bali in 2007 when governments launched talks on a global climate pact.

"I think the Berlin Wall was knocked over in 2007.  There have been some very active bricklayers trying to put it back up," he said.

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