经济学人下载:联合国气候会谈

UN climate talks
联合国气候会谈

Pretty basic
“基础四国”举足轻重

Diplomacy ahead of the UN climate conference in Durban augurs little progress
联合国气候大会将在南非德班举行，此前各国态度预示会议进展维艰

Sep 3rd 2011 | from the print edition

NEVER has the UN’s Kyoto protocol looked sorrier. In 2012 the five-year “commitment period” it brought into being—in which developed countries took on legally binding responsibilities to cut their industrial greenhouse-gas emissions against 1990 levels—will end. Already Japan, Russia and Canada have refused to repeat the exercise. America was never part of it. Of the important rich countries, only the Europeans, responsible for around 13% of global emissions, will consider a second go. If cutting global carbon emissions was its aim, the UN scheme has failed.

联合国《京都议定书》遭遇前所未有的失败。2012年，发达国家依法减少工业温室气体排放的五年承诺期即将结束。目前，日本，俄罗斯，加拿大三国已拒绝为此再次承诺。而美国从未加入此议定书。重要的发达国家中，只有占全球二氧化碳总排量13%的欧洲国家，有意向继续实施减排。以降低二氧化碳排量为目标的联合国计划，已注定会失败。

Yet it refuses to die. A UN climate conference will be held in Durban at the end of November, and the protocol’s future will dominate it. This was stressed in a recent statement from several powerful developing countries—Brazil, South Africa, India and China—who have formed a block called the “BASIC Group”. At a meeting in Brazil on August 26th-27th, “agreeing on the second commitment period” was apparently the main issue they discussed. It was hardly likely, they noted sharply, that a country would leave the Kyoto protocol because it wished to cut emissions faster.

但数个国家仍在极力挽救此计划。2011年联合国气候大会将于11月底在德班举行。议定书此后将何去何从，待此次会议决定。由巴西、南非、印度、中国几个主要的发展中国家构成的“基础四国”，在最近的声明中对此事很关注。8月26日和27日在巴西召开的会议上，“第二个承诺期的一致意见”无疑成为了他们讨论的焦点。四国特别强调，任何一国离开《京都议定书》都不可能实现更快减排的愿望。