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limate change skeptics have been used as “a weapon” by countries opposing a binding treaty on emission reductions to stifle climate negotiations, officials say.

Those opposing climate change also often emerged with knotty terms such as “a politically binding statement” or “a legally binding agreement” to confuse talks.

“They use skeptics and unhelpful terms to confuse negotiations. It then impacts the talks,” The President’s special envoy for climate change, Rachmat Witoelar told reporters Thursday.

Rachmat declined to name the countries, saying the number of climate skeptics increased after e-mail messages written by experts questioning predictions by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were leaked before last year’s Copenhagen talks.

Former environment minister Rachmat accused the countries taking sides with the email skeptics were those selfishly looking out for their own interests.

“They use it because they don’t want to provide financial aid to developing nations to deal with climate change,” he said.

“For Indonesia, the IPCC reports are authentic scientific proof of climate change,” he said.

The negotiations on climate talks aimed to seal a global deal with binding emissions reduction targets in an effort to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gas being released into the atmosphere and slow the impacts of climate change.

But negotiations have stalled since nations met in Bali in 2007.

The Bali climate conference required the world to agree to a protocol determining emissions reduction targets by 2009 in Copenhagen to pave way for countries to ratify it before its implementation in 2013.

The new treaty was expected to replace the Kyoto Protocol that would end term in 2012. The protocol binds only developed nations to 5 percent emissions cuts.

Negotiators from 190 countries have so far met three times this year in Bonn, Germany to restart talks after the failure of Copenhagen. Negotiators will meet from Oct. 2 to 6 in China as the last preparatory meeting ahead of December’s meeting in Mexico.

Rachmat presaged the conference in Cancun, Mecixo, would not produce a legally binding treaty on emissions cuts.

“But, the Mexico meeting could build pillars of agreements on fast tracking money, adaptation, technology transfers and REDD issues,” he said.

REDD stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, which was expected to be alternative way to c ut emissions since the clearing of forests is blamed for the release of about 20 percent of global emissions.

Meteorological expert from the Bandung Technology of Institute (ITB) Armi Susandi said climate change negotiations had been hijacked by politics.

“The climate change skeptics are only buying time,” Armi told The Jakarta Post.

According to Armi, IPCC reports on the global warming and impacts of climate change were nothing new to scientists around the world.

“If we look at it in the context of countries, the impacts of global warming will be far more dangerous than outlined in the IPCC report, since the earth will respond very quickly to each degree increase,” he said.

He called on negotiators to understand the science behind global warming to speed up negotiations to save the planet.