Bolivia, Venezuela shut out of U.S. climate aid

The global climate conference designed to repair the rifts cause by last year’s Copenhagen summit began today with a continuation of divisions.

At the heart of the arguments at the Bonn conference is whether the goals set by last year’s Copenhagen pact are realistic and if the agreement itself is legally binding. “Few delegates believed a final agreement is possible this year,” according to the AP. Yet the U.S. has flexed its political muscle in favor of the Copenhagen guidelines by denying climate change funds to countries that rejected the pact. Thus, several Latin American countries including Bolivia and Ecuador are slated to lose millions of dollars in aid under the Obama administration's Global Climate Change initiative.

Aside from the global climate rift, Latin America itself has been divided over what to do regarding climate change. Brazil, for instance, helped co-draft the Copenhagen Accord while states such as Nicaragua and Argentina refused to endorse the pact. The agreement symbolizes “the economic interests of the few which are standing in the way of a broad, democratic agreement,” Venezuelan delegate Claudia Salerno said earlier today. Despite the lack of regional consensus Latin American countries could be key in moving discussions forward:

Mexico has convened informal talks among a smaller group of about 40 key nations -- many agree the U.N. process is too unwieldy with 194. The United States will host talks next week among 17 major emitters, accounting for more than 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions.

"We need to make progress in building compromise formulas that can be the result of an intensive and flexible process," said Fernando Tudela, Mexico's chief negotiator.

Image- Guardian UK (“Delegates of the UN climate change talks pass a symbolic pile of broken glass in Bonn, Germany.”)
Online Sources- Guardian UK, AP, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, New York Times, The Latin Americanist