Greenland can participate in climate negotiations on its own terms, reports Sermitsiaq.
This ends a conflict between Nuuk and Copenhagen over whether Greenland would be required to live up to the same requirements as Denmark in a new climate treaty.
The announcement comes after Premier Kuupik Kleist held a second round of meetings with Denmark's climate minister Connie Hedegaard.
"They are willing to accommodate our wish to participate in negotiations, and sign up to an international agreement on the terms we established on our own," Kleist said.
The administration has butted heads with Copenhagen in recent weeks over its request that it be permitted to increase its emission of greenhouse gasses in order to allow it to develop its mineral and petroleum industries.
Denmark has said Greenland must meet the goal of an eight per cent emission reduction by 2012 set out by the Kyoto Protocol.
Officials in Nuuk have maintained that a 2001 agreement does not commit them to specific targets.
Kleist declined to reveal the details of the meeting with Hedegaard, but called the discussion "exceedingly positive," Sermitsiaq reports.
The next step, he said, will be for the administration to determine what its conditions for agreeing to a new protocol would be.
"We've got nothing written down yet specifying what our terms are," Kleist said.
Greenland wins?
It looks as if Greenland can decide on whether or not to support a new climate change deal in Copenhagen.
Published: 06.11.2009 12:47
