Top environmental negotiators from Japan, the United States and eight other non-European Union industrialized countries will hold secret talks in New Zealand in the middle of February, informed sources said Thursday.
The sources said that the ambassadorial-level officials from the 10 member countries of the so-called Umbrella Group will discuss a joint strategy toward stalled international negotiations on ways to prevent global warming. The group comprises Japan, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakstan.
The secret meeting of the Umbrella Group in New Zealand will come about three months after the collapse of the sixth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP6, in The Hague.