Climate talks teeter as developing nations accuse rich ones of 'apartheid' treatment
Current talks are the last chance for negotiations around the wording of a landmark climate agreement before the UN conference in Paris.
Developing nations have accused rich ones of sidelining their interests at crunch climate talks, as the UN chief and France's president pushed for an ambitious global deal.
A South Africa negotiator for a developing country bloc complained of "apartheid" treatment at the hands of developed nations at a meeting in Bonn, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the process as "frustrating" and "slow".
The G77 group of more than 130 developing nations - which includes China and India - rejected a slimmed-down draft agreement crafted for the five-day parlay in the former West German capital.
The text, slashed from 80 to 20 pages by two diplomats guiding the process, left out red-line demands on finance and fairness, they complained.
"When you take out the issues of others, you disenfranchise them, and disempower those who suffer the most," said South Africa's climate envoy Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, who chairs the G77. This in turn, was a recipe for "conflict", she said.
The five-day Bonn talks, which began on Monday, offer the last chance for official bartering on the wording of the text that nations have agreed to finalise at a November 30-December 11 UN climate conference in Paris.
But the first day was taken up by reinserting core demands which developing countries said had been excised.
Speaking to journalists in Bratislava, Ban said the talks have been held back by "narrow national perspectives".
"We don't have any 'plan B' because we don't have any 'planet B'," he warned.
In Paris, French president Francois Hollande affirmed: "There will be a deal" coming out of the November 30-December 11 climate summit in the French capital. But he cautioned against a hollow result.
"The question is at what level the agreement will be reached, and whether we will be able to revise it regularly," he said.
A key pillar of the Paris pact will be a roster of national pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
Read more: Time for climate to take centre stage, activists say ahead of UN summit
Scientists say pledges submitted by more than 150 nations so far place Earth on course for warming closer to 3 degrees Celsius - a world of dangerous sea level rises, superstorms and diseases spreading.
A key disagreement at the talks concerns a mechanism to regularly review and ramp up country actions so that the 2 degree goal is achieved.
The Paris pact, due to take effect in 2020, will be the first climate agreement to include all the world's nations - crowning more than two decades of fractious negotiations.
Developing nations also complained on Monday that the latest version of the draft text was short of assurances on financial aid. Rich countries have pledged to cough up US$100 billion per year from 2020 to boost carbon reduction efforts and help vulnerable states brace for climate-induced impacts.
The draft that emerges from Bonn will be taken in hand by ministers and heads of state for the hard political compromises required to seal a deal in Paris.
