The new draft also fails to provide any long-term goals for emissions reductions, the peaking of emissions, and long-term financing to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change. It stated only that the provisions were “to be elaborated” with reference to an earlier draft issued last Friday, which contained a range of emissions targets.

The new draft comes as leaders from over 100 countries arrived in the Danish capital to hammer out a plan, but the talks have been slow going due to tensions over who should cut carbon dioxide emissions and who should pay for it.

The draft was issued the day after the group of 77, which includes poor countries as well as large emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil, walked out of the talks, accusing industrialized nations of trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol.

The walk out prompted a suspension in the official negotiations Monday, and the chairman of the conference appointed five different working groups to advance consultations on the more complicated issues.

The global climate summit in Copenhagen seeks to find a new agreement on international rules to limit global warming after 2012. Developing countries want to keep the structure of the Kyoto Protocol – which requires developed nations, but not poorer countries nor the United States, to cut greenhouses gasses – with a new document to supplement it.

It is my opinion that since developed nations have been historically responsible for most global emissions of greenhouse gases, they must also take the lead in combating climate change by abating their carbon emissions and providing money and technology to poorer nations.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about the global climate summit

MSNBC cited Uganda as a prime market for solar cell phones in an article last week: “Just eight percent of the country’s 32 million plus population have electric grid access. Even when the grid is there, like where Mawa lives in Mulago, a poor suburb of Kampala, the power is costly and the service is intermittent.” So far Nokia, Samsung, and a few others have ventured to make these phones readily available to developing nations, but it’s safe to say that many more companies will be looking to capitalize on the opportunity in the near term. 

[image via Oracio Alvarado]