Developed nations should compensate for their historical emissions and change their current unsustainable living styles to reduce high-level per capita emissions, a lot of representatives from developing nations said in their speeches at the meeting.
At the opening ceremony on Saturday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that it's unfair to force developing nations to sacrifice their strong will for industrialization.
"It's commonly agreed that the earth could be saved only when all members of the international community participate in the process. However, developing countries worry about their economic growth being constrained by environmental obligations and all participants know it will not be easy to find double-win schemes" said Akira Amari, minister of the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry, at a press conference following the two-day meeting.
As the concept of "common and differentiated responsibilities" has been accepted by all, participating nations were still far apart over what are common responsibilities and what are differentiated responsibilities, Amari said, adding that to mitigate such divergent understandings and explanations may be a time-consuming procedure.
Developing countries questioned the meeting's defining participating members as "major emitters".
"Why should India, whose per capita emission is one ton, be called as one of the top emitters as that of the United States is about 20 tons and that of Europe is about 10 tons," said Ajay Mathur, an official from India.
The meeting involved China, India, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, Spain, Poland, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Nigeria and the G-8 industrialized nations.
Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the China National Development and Reform Commission, called on developed nations to allocate, in accordance with a UN treaty, some of their Official Development Assistance to set up a fund facilitating the distribution of high-end technologies, indicating that developing nations should enjoy free or low-cost access to those environment-friendly technologies.
