International delegates reached an agreement early Friday on the best ways to combat climate change despite efforts by China to water down language on cutting destructive greenhouse gas emissions.
The closed-door debate over everything from nuclear power to the cost of cleaner energy ran into the early morning hours with quibbling over wording. But consensus was eventually reached on a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN network of 2,000 scientists and delegates from more than 120 nations.
China, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after the United States, took a strong stance during the four-day meeting in Thailand. Along with India and other developing countries, it had pushed to raise the lowest target for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, delegates said.
A draft of the report proposed the world limit concentrations of greenhouse gases to between 445 parts per million and 650 parts per million, but China sought to strike the lower range over fears it would hinder its booming economy, Michael Muller, Germany’s vice-minister for the environment, told reporters before the agreement was reached.
According to a partial version of the finalized document obtained by the Associated Press, China’s efforts failed to remove the lower emission target from the report.
The report is the third segment of an overall IPCC blueprint that will shape the way the world tackles global warming. The final version was not made available when the meeting broke around 4:30 a.m. Friday, but delegates said it largely resembled a draft version that said emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, embraces energy efficiency and significantly reduces deforestation.
“The strong message (from the report) is that it’s possible to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at the level where severe climatic change can be avoided,“ said Lars Nilsson, a delegate from Sweden.
China is facing increasing international pressure as its economy expands--it posted 11.1 percent growth in the first quarter--and it pumps increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
At this week’s meeting, Beijing campaigned for wording that would clearly blame the top industrialized countries in North America and Europe for global warming and give them the responsibility for solving it, rather than latecomers like China and India, delegates said.
Chinese delegates did not discuss their positions publicly, but environmental activists suggested Thursday that China was being unfairly targeted, saying it was making strong efforts to improve energy efficiency and rein in emissions.
Stephan Singer, of the conservation group WWF International, said China had a worthy target of increasing energy efficiency by 20 percent from 2006 to 2010.
The U.S. remained surprisingly quiet on most issues at the meeting, but some delegates said it appeared to be content letting China take the lead. However, the U.S. delegation was vocal over the role nuclear power could play in efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses. European nations reminded policymakers not to forget the security risks that could be associated with that.

Mined diamonds are supposed to be subject to a certification scheme meant to ensure the gems are not being used to finance wars or crime.

UN investigators are looking into allegations that the UN Development Programme and the World Bank aided in the transport of diamonds out of Zimbabwe in violation of rules meant to prevent trafficking in so-called blood diamonds.
According to an international protocol set up in 2000 in the city of Kimberley, South Africa, newly mined diamonds are supposed to be subject to a certification scheme meant to ensure the gems are not being used to finance wars or crime. Signatories to the Kimberley Process, which include Zimbabwe, have agreed that diamonds mined in their countries will not be taken out and sold elsewhere without obtaining such certification.
In a report in Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette on Wednesday, the country’s Foreign Ministry confirmed claims made by a local diamond company, Bubye Minerals, that its chief rival, River Ranch Limited, used UNDP-registered vehicles to smuggle uncertified diamonds out of the country. The UNDP denies direct involvement in the smuggling but says it is investigating them.
Earlier this week, the Israeli Diamond Industry Web site reported that a UN assistant secretary-general for legal affairs, Larry Johnson, confirmed that an investigation was launched into allegations that the UNDP and World Bank aided River Ranch in bypassing the Kimberley certification and taking Zimbabwe diamonds out of the country in violation of the protocol.
According to a UNDP background brief circulated yesterday, River Ranch is one of the companies aided by Africa-wide entities set up by UNDP and the World Bank to help “small and medium enterprises“ in countries like Zimbabwe.
The initial findings of an external probe launched by one of those entities, the African Management Services Company, “found that River Ranch’s operations are in compliance with the local laws and ethical standards,“ according to the UNDP brief.
However, the Financial Gazette reported that Zimbabwe’s Foreign Ministry confirmed some of the allegations made by Bubye and that at least one UNDP-registered vehicle was involved in River Ranch’s smuggling uncertified diamonds out of Zimbabwe. The newspaper relied on a Foreign Ministry letter sent to Bubye on Tuesday.
“Please be advised that the vehicle number 200TCE 664, a Toyota Land Cruiser, was registered on 26 October 2005 under the name of a Mr. Pradiptha Kishora Susare, a UNDP employee, and 200TCE 666, also a Toyota Land Cruiser, was registered as a UNDP Mission vehicle on 26 October 2005,“ the letter reportedly said.
“I haven’t yet seen the letter,“ a UNDP spokeswoman, Cassandra Waldon, told The New York Sun yesterday. She noted, however, that the Gazette report did not contradict the agency’s own findings.
According to Ms. Waldon, one of the vehicles, 200TCE 666, had been purchased under the UNDP “umbrella“ but was being used by another agency. Additionally, she said, the car has not been operational since December 2006, when it was involved in an accident. The other vehicle--described by Ms. Waldon as a “green-gray Toyota Land Cruiser“--though registered to UNDP, is actually being used by AMSCO.
“UNDP takes the allegations seriously and is awaiting the results of the external investigation commissioned by AMSCO,“ she said.

While most investors view Afghanistan as a war-torn land in need of aid, China is eyeing its economic potentials for major business contracts.
“Around 1,000 businessmen from China are currently in the country (and) not just in Kabul,“ a Chinese diplomat was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.
“Our policy is clear. We believe that a stable, developed Afghanistan is in the interests of China,“ the diplomat, whose name was not revealed, said.
Afghanistan has vast potential for copper mining, a resource that may transform Afghan economy, but the country has a long way to go yet, especially in the south where violence prevails. For China, nothing is impossible, even in a land as insecure as Afghanistan.
Turkey is the largest single investor and accounts for over a fifth of all registered Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The United States is second with 17 percent of investment, followed by China and the UAE at less than 10 percent and Pakistan and Iran at five percent.
Market opportunities are largely driven by Afghanistan’s need to completely renovate its infrastructure.
Some of the opportunities for Iranian and international investors are architectural, construction, and engineering services; computer hardware, software and peripherals (to include Dari language capability); telecommunication services and equipment; aircraft parts and equipment, as well as oil and gas field machinery.

The world’s most powerful finance chiefs begin a two-day meeting Friday to consider steps aimed at strengthening financial market stability, supporting sound governance in Africa and regulating the 1.4-trillion-dollar hedge fund industry.
Although the meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Eight, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia, comes ahead of a G8 summit of heads of state and government in the seaside resort of Heiligendamm in early June 6-9, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has decided to skip the meeting, AFP reported.
The United States will be represented by his deputy, Robert Kimmit.
Germany and the United States are already at odds over Berlin’s determination to establish stricter controls over speculative hedge funds.
Steinbrueck, the German finance minister, said in a recent newspaper interview that he would press for a voluntary code of conduct for the hedge fund industry, even if a deal was unlikely by the G8 summit in June.
In response, US Treasury Secretary for International Affairs Clay Lowery said: “There has not been a lot of clarity on exactly what that means.
The G8 ministers in a final statement Saturday can also be expected to comment on world growth prospects and currency markets.
But their past communiquŽs, calling for China to allow its currency to float more freely and appealing in general for exchange rate stability, have been so bland as to have little impact on world markets.
The closed-door meeting had been threatened of being upstaged by the controversy surrounding Paul Wolfowitz, who had planned to attend the meeting before announcing Thursday he will step down next month as World Bank president over a favoritism scandal.
Wolfowitz, who had been expected to brief the finance ministers on the Bank’s programs to fight corruption and illegal transfers of capital, would not travel to Germany for the meeting, a source said after his resignation announcement.
European countries had pushed hard for the former deputy defense secretary’s departure.
The G8 ministers were urged to honor their group’s promises to end poverty in an open letter published in the Financial Times on Friday that was signed by more than 60 luminaries, including five Nobel prize winners.
The signatories called on G8 finance ministers to “implement innovative finance mechanisms as a key source of much needed finance for development,“ and said that “the poorest countries in the world need you to honor these aid pledges“ if they are to end poverty.

A deal for Russia to acquire a stake in the Belarus pipeline network which carries Russian gas to Europe will not be signed on Friday as planned owing to continuing disagreements, officials said.
“Negotiations are continuing today,“ Belarus government
spokesman Alexander Timoshenko told AFP, adding that a new date for signature of the agreement would be announced only after the talks were completed.
The deal, under which Russian gas giant Gazprom was to acquire a 50-percent stake in the Belarus gas pipeline monopoly Beltransgaz, was hammered out shortly after midnight last New Year’s Eve amid a Russia-Belarus energy dispute that threatened to disrupt gas supplies to Europe.
The agreement was to have been signed on Friday and news of the last-minute snag came as a surprise.
Timoshenko said the unresolved disagreement between Gazprom and Belarus centred on one point in the accord, but declined to provide further details.
Belarus energy analyst Tatyana Manyenok said it appeared the snag was over gas transit fees for Belarus domestic customers.
Gazprom confirmed the delay in the signing of the agreement.
“The signing of the Beltransgaz buy-sell share agreement will not take place on May 18 but later,“ Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Kupriyanov said Gazprom believed that all aspects of the agreement would be signed by June 1.

The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) says the eight years of civil rule has only put the nation’s economy on the path of recovery, as it (economy) is yet to experience the growth rate of the sixties before the discovery of oil.
The association feared that indications seem to be pointing towards retrogression rather than progression.
President of the association, Sam Ohuabunwa, speaking at the 2007 annual general meeting/50th anniversary celebration of NECA held at the Lagos Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Ikeja on Thursday, told Businessdayonline the economy in the 1960s was touted among the fastest growing in the world with the growth rate of 8.6 percent and per-capita income of US120.
Juxtaposing this with the average growth rate of 6.11 percent and the inflationary rate not exceeding 12 percent, of the last three years, the NECA boss said the economy was only recovering from long years of doldrums. He observed that the economy even recorded better performance at a time when the country did not have access to revenue from oil and gas.
Given the analysis, Ohuabawa said “hence, we should not over celebrate our current economic performance, as it has simply positioned us on the path of recovery rather than consolidation of past gains, which had, in any case, been frittered away through years of mal-administration.
He however noted that there bigger challenge lay ahead for the captains of the economy in respect of social dividends of the much touted growth.

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate has surged to an unprecedented 3,714% at the end of April.
The inflation figures were published as the government set up a commission to try to bring prices down to single digit levels, Press Association reported.
Prices more than doubled last month as shown by a 100.7% increase--the highest on record--in the consumer price index calculated by the state Central Statistical Office, the Herald newspaper said. In the past year they increased 36-fold.
The Herald said that President Robert Mugabe on Monday signed into law regulations to enforce wage and price controls through “comprehensive price surveys and inspections,“ with a penalty of up to five years in jail for violators. The ultimate aim would be to bring inflation into single digits.
In recent years, the government has tried to freeze prices for corn meal, bread, cooking oil, meat, school fees and transport costs with little success. Socialist-style controls have driven a thriving black market in scarce commodities.
Sugar, unavailable in regular stores for weeks, fetches at least 10 times the government’s designated price at a market in Harare’s impoverished western township of Mbare.
Minibus drivers, the country’s main commuter transport, routinely ignore government directives on fares, citing soaring black market prices for fuel.
Commuters questioned at police roadblocks often lie about the fare they paid or risk being thrown off the bus and left stranded.
The independent Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries estimates most factories across the country are running at around 30% capacity or less, and countless businesses have shut down, fuelling record unemployment of about 80%.
Many consumer items have disappeared altogether, forcing supermarkets to fill out their shelves with empty packaging behind the few goods on display.