Africa weighs in before December’s climate-palooza:

As the clock ticks towards the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Africa has now declared that it will not accept a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
The African negotiators have also stated that neither will they accept a merger of the protocol that is currently in use, with a new agreement.
In a statement to mark the end of their Second Technical Meeting in Addis Ababa, the negotiators said successful negotiations should produce a two-pronged outcome.
They want sections of the Kyoto Protocol on the developed countries to be amended to include further commitments for a second and subsequent commitment periods.
Africa also wants a separate legal instrument to be developed based on the outcome of the negotiations of the Bali Action Plan under the Climate Change Convention.
The statement reiterated that Africa should be equitably compensated in the context of environmental justice, for environmental resources, economic and social losses considering developed countries historical responsibilities on climate change.
“In this respect, Africa requires new, sustained and scaled-up finance, technology and capacity for adaptation and risk management,” the statement read in part.
Africa wants the outcome of the Copenhagen convention to provide new, additional, sustainable, accessible and predictable finance to support a comprehensive international programme on adaptation, that reduces vulnerability and increases resilience.
The provision of financial, technological and capacity building support by developed country parties for adaptation in developing countries, they argued, is a commitment under the climate change Convention that must be urgently fulfilled.

As does Ban Ki-moon:

SEATTLE — The United States has to take a strong role if the world hopes to deal with global warming, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says.
“All the world is now looking to the leadership of the United States and President Obama,” Ban said in an interview Sunday with The Seattle Times.
Ban is making a two-day visit to Seattle as part of a trip to call attention to global issues such as climate change and to promote the U.N. to the American public. He was to receive an honorary degree from the University of Washington on Monday, after meeting earlier in the day with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda.
Ban has been pressing nations to commit to firm emission limits when they meet in December in Copenhagen, Denmark, to work out a new treaty to slow global warming, replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on carbon dioxide emissions. The meeting has been billed as a last chance to avoid the impact of global warming.
This week, the Senate environment committee will take up its version of a global warming bill. The legislation would cut greenhouse gases by about 80 percent by 2050 and require more domestic energy to come from renewable sources.
But with work still to be done on health care and deep divisions in Congress over how to deal with climate change, chances the Senate will pass a climate bill by the end of the year are slim. That means U.S. negotiators are likely to not have firm targets set before the Copenhagen meeting.
Ban told The Times that climate change complicates many other problems the U.N. is working to solve, such as poverty and famine and the ensuing political instability.