African nations agreed to resume talks in Copenhagen on Monday after a half-day suspension, accusing rich countries of trying to kill the existing Kyoto Protocol.
"We're going back," Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters after a meeting of the African group.
The protest held up a session due to start mid-morning, just four days before a summit of 110 leaders aims to reach consensus on a U.N. pact to combat global warming.
The Danish hosts gave assurances there would be more focus on African nations' demands for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing pact for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases, according to Ousman Jarju.
Monday's session of the 192-nation meeting was to seek ways to end deadlock on core issues as part of a sweeping new deal meant to limit global warming and rein in extreme weather patterns that scientists see intensifying in coming decades.
Australian climate minister Penny Wong accused the African nations of staging a walkout and said it was "not the time for procedural games" so close to the end of the Dec. 7-18 meeting of more than 20,000 participants.
African nations accuse rich nations of trying to sideline the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, a treaty obliging almost 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
The original outline of talks for Monday "means that we are going to accept the death of the only one legally binding instrument that exists now," said Kamel Djemouai, an Algerian official who heads the African group.
Developing nations want to extend the Kyoto Protocol and work out a separate new deal for developing nations. But most rich nations want to merge the 1997 Kyoto Protocol into a new, single accord with obligations for all to fight global warming.
The developing nations favor a single track mainly because the United States, the number two greenhouse gas emitter behind China, is outside the Kyoto agreement. They fear signing a new Kyoto while the United States slips away with a less strict regime with developing nations.
The United Nations pointed out that many nations back the African view. "The vast majority of countries here want to see the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.
Danish Minister Connie Hedegaard, presiding at the conference, plans to appoint environment ministers to try to break deadlock in key areas, such as the depth of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations by 2020, and cash to help the poor.
"If we carry on at this pace, we're not going to get an agreement," British Energy and Climate Minister Ed Miliband told the BBC.
Previously during the U. N. conference, developing countries have accused the Danish chairs of ignoring their concerns.
G77-China chief negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping explained why the bloc had taken the decision to withdraw its cooperation.
"It has become clear that the Danish presidency -- in the most undemocratic fashion -- is advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries," he told BBC.
"The mistake they are doing now has reached levels that cannot be acceptable from a president who is supposed to be acting and shepherding the process on behalf of all parties."
Last week, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu forced a suspension after insisting that proposals to amend the U.N. climate convention and Kyoto Protocol be debated in full.
At a news conference Monday, U.K. Climate Secretary Ed Miliband said that for the developed world to commit to further cuts under the Kyoto Protocol would be "irresponsible for the climate."
He said it would leave some of the world's biggest emitters such as the United States, China and India without targets for cutting emissions, which was why the EU favored an entirely new agreement covering all countries.
Kim Carstensen, director of the global climate initiative with environment group World Wildlife Fund, said that much more movement was needed on the Kyoto Protocol negotiations here.
"The point is being made very loudly that African countries and the wider G77 bloc will not accept non-action on the Kyoto Protocol, and they're really afraid that a deal has been stitched up behind their backs," he told BBC News.
Some delegates suggested that the suspension, and the underlying tensions to which it speaks, doesn't bode well for the chances of any meaningful agreement here.
Responding to the day's events, U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned that time was running out for nations to reach an agreement.
"I appeal to all world leaders... to redouble efforts to find room for compromise," he told reporters. "Time is running out. There is no time for posturing or blaming."
Heads of state and government will begin arriving tomorrow for the final segment of talks that are due to finish on Friday.
Watch the NCR Ecology channel and the NCR Today group blog for updates on the Copenhagen climate conference.
[Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His email: rheffern@ncronline.org]
