【英语国际】联合国气候变化谈判会议在天津举行

Negotiators warned that the United Nations framework for talks on climate change could lose international support if they failed to break a deadlock soon, and called on China to show leadership in the discussions.

'We need to show that we are not a bunch of bureaucrats who have lost the belief in action on climate change,' the European Commission's chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger told reporters Monday at the start of six days of climate-change talks in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin.

Representatives from more than 190 nations gathered for the last round before a climate-change summit in Cancun, Mexico, in November. Expectations are low for a deal this year, but participants say they want to put down building blocks for a deal in time to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which expires in 2012.

'It is absolutely indispensable that China show leadership' and flexibility to reach the compromises necessary for agreement ahead of Cancun, Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Monday at the Tianjin conference.

Negotiators' ambitions have been tempered after last year's climate talks in Copenhagen ended with only a last-minute, nonbinding accord reached in an atmosphere of recrimination. Nations remain divided on how to measure and verify carbon-emission cuts, and what obligations relatively poor but fast-growing countries such as China and India should take on.

After Copenhagen, China and the U.S. traded accusations over which had killed the chances for a binding global deal. China has since moved ahead on key planks in its global-warming platform, which included an energy-efficiency drive and a promise to slow -- but not cap -- how much carbon its growing economy emits. Meanwhile, climate-change legislation has been sidelined in Washington.

在中国天津出席联合国气候变化国际谈判会议的谈判人员警告说，如果他们不能很快打破僵局，联合国有关气候变化的谈判框架有可能失去国际支持，他们还呼吁中国在谈判中展示出领导力。

欧盟首席谈代表梅兹格(Artur Runge-Metzger)周一在会议开始时对记者们说，我们需要展示出我们不是一帮对于在气候变化方面采取行动丧失了信心的官僚。此次为期六天的会议在中国北方港口城市天津举行。

来自世界190多个国家的代表此次齐聚天津，是要在今年11月墨西哥坎昆全球气候变化峰会召开前举行最后一轮谈判。虽然人们对今年达成一项全球气候变化协议不抱什么期望，但与会者说，他们想为达成这样一项协议创造条件，以便旨在解决全球变暖问题的《京都议定书》(Kyoto Protocol)在2012年到期时能有一份气候变化协议接续它。

《联合国气候变化框架公约》(U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change)秘书处执行秘书菲格雷斯(Christiana Figueres)周一在会上表示，要想为赶在坎昆峰会前达成气候变化共识形成必要的妥协，中国展示出领导力和灵活性是绝对不可或缺的。

在去年的哥本哈根全球气候谈判结束后，谈判人员达成一项全球气候变化协议的雄心已经被泼了冷水。那次会议只是在结束前的最后一刻，才在与会各国相互指责的氛围下达成了一份无约束力的协议。世界各国在如何测量和验证碳排放削减量、以及中国和印度等相对贫穷但发展迅速的国家应在减排方面承担何种义务方面，仍然存在分歧。

哥本哈根会议后，中国和美国就究竟是谁扼杀了达成一项有约束力全球气候协议的机会一事相互指责。那次会议以来，中国开始推进其在防止全球变暖方面一些重要的既定举措，包括提高能源使用效率，以及兑现减缓碳排放量增长速度的承诺(中国不同意给自己的碳排放量设置上限)。而与此同时，美国政府却搁置了气候变化立法工作。