The European Union voiced the first sign of discord at United Nations climate talks as Monaco’s Prince Albert II and Ethiopian President Melez Zenawi join envoys working on a plan to fight global warming. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, following a meeting with officials from Beijing, said she needed more information about China’s pledge to cap greenhouse gases after 2020. The Chinese proposal is aimed at coaxing industrial nations to renew the only treaty limiting fossil fuel emissions. “I still believe that China holds one of the central keys to unlock the situation,” she said in an e-mailed statement last night. “The central issue remains how China will follow us and when. Here, more clarifications and further dialogue is needed.” After nine days of meetings in the South African port city of Durban, diplomats from 192 nations have made little progress on how to renew the Kyoto Protocol, whose limits on fossil fuel emissions lapse at the end of 2012. China wants industrial nations to sign up to further commitments under the pact. The U.S. never ratified the accord, and the EU says it will extend Kyoto only if all major emitters adopt carbon goals.
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