Climate talks in Barcelona were interrupted yesterday by a series of protests from African nations. The African delegates  expressed their frustration with the current climate talks and policies.   They are calling for a suspension of all further negotiations on the Kyoto protocol until substantial progress is made by rich countries on emission cuts. They are not by themselves on this, the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, as well as Bolivia and Venezuela   backed up this group.  The Guardian say s that "in a press conference, the poorest countries demanded that the rich adopt the science-backed target of a 40% overall cut on emissions on 1990 levels. So far, rich countries have pledged an aggregate of less than 10%. The US, the world's second biggest polluter, has pledged to cut around 4% on 1990 levels, or 17% on 2005 levels. "

The biggest fear is that developed countries are running away from legally binding compromises in Copenhagen, and if this happens, then all the climate talk will stay in simply speeches.  A deal is needed, and so far the negotiations seem pointing to a bad deal or to no deal at all. Since, developing countries are the most affected with climate change, they need funds to cope with climate related disasters ( as we saw in the past couple of months in Asia) and to adapt to climate change consequences.

The Kyoto protocol is still very important because it contains a few basic justice frameworks Annex 1 countries are trying to avoid

1)   Compliance. Where the international community evaluates the progress of the countries' commitments and their time frame. .

2)   Overall targets. This means the international community set C02 targets and then divides up responsibilities accordingly.

3)   "Common but differentiated responsibilities." This involves industrialized, emerging, and developing countries in the climate process in different levels. The Global South is dealing with the worst of the climate change impacts, and they still need to reduce their emissions, however they can't have the same responsibilities and take the same actions than industrialized countries. They need technology transfer and funds to be able to mitigate and adapt to the consequences of climate change.

We cannot have a set of ‘voluntary' actions for climate change. Countries need to make compromises, big ones.  Enough of just talking, this is about economy, migration, food and survival, and we should stop making it just about politics.  I can feel the tension and frustration of delegates, politics and activist in the talks. I bet lots of them also want to come to a conclusion. But the world is full of diverse compromises, political discourses and economic needs. Can we get the whole world to agree about one thing? Even if its about our future?

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