No-one will be surprised to hear that consensus was not possible. It all went down to a vote yesterday.
This is how the Member States voted:
Abstention by all EU Member States, plus a few others. Outright voting against by, among others, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Again, no real surprises. It was always clear that this entire process would pit the interests of developing countries against those of the developed countries.
Indicates that we’re in for a serious amount of wrangling as the Member States get to work on the substantive provisions of the Framework Convention.
Impressive work by the Africa Group throughout these latest negotiations. They presented a clear and unified position for Africa, with a skilful mix of diplomacy and hard bargaining. We can expect a lot more of this in the months ahead.
