South Africa’s delegate criticised a draft United Nations accord on fighting climate change as a form of “apartheid” against developing nations.
Negotiations in Germany on the draft text of a climate rescue pact – to be signed at a November 30 to December 11 summit in Paris – got off to a stormy start on Monday with developing nations saying their demands had been omitted from the pared down 20-page draft.
“It is just like apartheid,” Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, South Africa’s delegate who speaks on behalf of the main grouping of more than 130 developing nations and China, told the meeting.
“We find ourselves in a position where in essence we are disenfranchised,” she said, saying the views of the poor had been ignored.