At the UN conference now being held in Bonn, India firmly declares that poor countries have a higher priority than climate change.

India said on Tuesday that poor nations had to give priority to ending poverty rather than fighting global warming at 189-nation U.N. climate talks criticised by environmentalists as a rambling talk shop.

Nations from Papua New Guinea to Iceland gave speeches during a novel two-day U.N. "dialogue" trying to bridge huge policy divides about how to slow a rise in temperatures that many scientists say could trigger catastrophic climate changes.

In one of the most forceful talks, India told rich nations to take the lead in cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels, saying India needed more energy to end poverty for the 35 percent of its people living on less than a dollar a day.

"Removal of poverty is the greater immediate imperative" than global warming, Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary of India's Environment Ministry, told the 1,600 delegates.

Sounds wise to me, but some observers were nonplussed.

Environmentalists expressed disappointment at the free-wheeling nature of the speeches.

"There was no sign of real momentum here, no sign of a focus to go anywhere," said Bill Hare, a climate policy adviser for the environmental group Greenpeace, after the meeting of senior officials ended on Tuesday evening. "This was a talk shop."

Greenpeace has its agenda and doesn’t like to hear officials on the ground voice dissenting opinions.

This conference is not going well for Kyoto enthusiasts.  On Monday, they were aghast that Canada’s Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is chairing the meeting because she has pointed out that Canada is not going to meet its Kyoto emissions target.

Environmental groups have called on Ambrose to resign as chair of the UN negotiations because she maintains Canada can't meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Now India has joined Canada in questioning Kyoto’s absolute goodness.  No wonder Gaia devotees environmentalists are upset over the direction the UN conference is taking.  Heretics are running rampant.

This next comment comes out of left field—literally: it’s from the NDP.

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen, who attended the opening of the conference, said the [Canadian] government is lying, since developing countries such as China and India had more advanced and ambitious targets than Canada.

''In front of my eyes, I watched the erosion of what Canada has built up over generations: the credibility to talk about the environment, to talk about the international community,'' he said. ''There was not a country at Bonn, who brought the perspective and the defeatist attitude that Canada brought forward.''

Mr Cullen may have attended the conference’s opening, but he should have hung around long enough to hear what India actually had to say.  Then he wouldn’t have made himself look foolish.

Canada.com link via Dust My Broom.