Financial crisis could hinder climate talks: Germany

Global financial turmoil will make it harder for international partners to reach important agreements on climate change in the coming months, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday.

Speaking at a Berlin conference on transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy, Steinmeier said countries’ policy priorities were shifting in the wake of the market crisis.
“The collapse of a bank is more visible and tangible, and media pressure to act is bigger than it is in a process which is less visible but which has more sustained and long-term effects, such as climate change,” he told the conference.

Steinmeier said it was crucial to make advances by the end of 2009, when a Copenhagen summit will aim to finalize a global warming accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which runs to the end of 2012.

Reuters