U.S. To Battle Allies
on Post-2012 Global Warming
November 28, 2005 — By Alister Doyle, Reuters
MONTREAL, Canada — Washington will
battle with its allies over how to slow climate change beyond 2012 at
U.N. talks in Canada this week that will also test developing nations'
willingness to do more to fight global warming.
Up to 10,000 delegates from 189 nations meet in Montreal from Nov.
28-Dec. 9 for the first annual climate talks since the U.N.'s Kyoto
Protocol on curbing heat-trapping gases, mainly from human use of fossil
fuels, entered into force in February.
Many Kyoto nations want Montreal to launch negotiations, likely to last
years, on setting new curbs once Kyoto's goals run out in 2012. Kyoto is
a bid to slow climate change that may trigger more hurricanes, droughts
and rising sea levels.
But the United States and Australia, which have rejected Kyoto as a
straitjacket threatening economic growth, do not want to discuss binding
commitments.
"I can't see the United States joining international negotiations about
what happens after 2012," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for
International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
"It's hard to imagine a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol without the
United States and Australia," he said.
Any deal excluding the United States and Australia could hand them a
competitive advantage because of costs of complying with Kyoto, which
seeks a shift from burning coal, oil and gas to cleaner energy sources
like wind and solar power.
Montreal will also be a test of how far developing nations such as China
and India are willing to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases when
wider use of energy -- like supplying electricity for homes or industry
-- is key to ending poverty.
NO TIME TO LOSE
Environmentalists say Kyoto backers should go ahead and plan long-term
targets to curb emissions, reasoning Washington might sign up after
President Bush steps down in 2009.
"It's clear from the mounting evidence of climate change that much
deeper cuts in emissions will be needed from 2012," environmental group
Greenpeace said. It wants a 2008 deadline for negotiating a successor
treaty for after Kyoto.
On one front-line of climate change, about 2,000 people on the Cantaret
Islands off Papua New Guinea have decided to move to nearby Bougainville
island after a losing battle with rising sea levels that have washed
away homes and poisoned fresh water.
And businesses and investors in a new European Union market for trading
emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, also urgently want
to know what the international rules will be after 2012.
The Montreal talks will involve senior officials with environment
ministers attending the last three days. Under Kyoto, about 40 nations
have to cut emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels
by 2008-12.
After pulling out of Kyoto in 2001, Bush has stressed investments in new
energy technologies like hydrogen or ways to bury carbon dioxide below
ground.
"Technology alone is not enough. This has become very clear from the
policy that the United States is following," EU Environment Commissioner
Stavros Dimas of Greece said last week.
U.S. emissions were 13.3 percent above 1990 levels in 2003, according to
U.N. data. Yet some Kyoto backers -- including Spain, Canada and Greece
-- were even further above 1990 levels.
The conference is a parallel meeting of the U.N.'s 189-nation 1992
climate convention which oversees Kyoto, in which Washington and
Canberra are full members, and of the 156-nation Kyoto Protocol, where
they are mere observers.
Among other tasks, Montreal will try to streamline a Kyoto scheme for
green projects in developing nations, like tapping the energy from
methane gas released by rubbish dumps in Brazil.
The project, known as the clean development mechanism, has been hit by
bottlenecks. "There's a huge amount of interest, but the people supposed
to be supervising the process are part-time," said Steve Drummond,
managing director at carbon dioxide brokers C02e.
Many Nations Far Above U.N. Greenhouse Gas Goals
Many nations are far above targets for reining in emissions of
greenhouse gases under a U.N. plan for battling global warming that will
be reviewed at a meeting in Canada next week.
Under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, developed countries are meant to cut
emissions of carbon dioxide, largely from burning fossil fuels in power
plants, factories and cars, by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
The talks in Montreal, Canada, from Nov 28-Dec 9 will start reviewing
ways to expand the scheme after 2012. The United States, the world's top
polluter, and Australia have pulled out.
Following is a list of countries which originally agreed to Kyoto
targets, starting with those furthest above the 1990 baseline. Emissions
in ex-Communist nations have fallen most after a collapse of Soviet-era
smokestack industries.
pct change total 2003 tonnes per pct of world 2003 vs 1990 emissions
capita 2002 total 2000 mln tonnes
Spain +41.7 402.3 7.3 1.2
Monaco +37.8 0.1 N/A 0.0
Portugal +36.7 81.1 6.0 0.3
Greece +25.8 137.6 8.5 0.4
Ireland +25.6 67.6 11.1 0.2
Canada +24.2 740.2 16.5 1.9
Australia +23.3 515.2 18.3 1.5
New Zealand +22.5 75.3 8.7 0.1
Finland +21.5 85.6 12.0 0.2
Austria +16.5 91.6 7.8 0.3
United States +13.3 6,893.8 20.1 24.4
Japan +12.8 1,339.1 9.4 5.2
Italy +11.5 569.8 7.5 1.9
Norway +9.3 54.8 12.2 0.2
Denmark +6.8 75.5 8.9 0.2
Liechtenstein +5.3 0.3 N/A 0.0
Netherlands +1.5 214.8 9.4 0.6
Belgium +1.3 147.6 6.8 0.4
Switzerland -0.4 52.2 5.7 0.2
European Union -1.4 4,179.6 N/A N/A
Slovenia -1.9 19.8 7.8 0.1
France -1.9 557.2 6.2 1.6
Sweden -2.3 70.6 5.8 0.2
Croatia -6.0 29.9 4.7 0.1
Iceland -8.2 3.0 7.7 0.3
Britain -13.0 651.1 9.2 2.5
Luxembourg -16.1 11.3 21.1 0.0
Germany -18.2 1,017.5 9.8 3.4
Czech Republic -24.2 145.4 11.2 0.5
Slovakia -28.3 51.7 6.8 0.2
Hungary -31.9 83.2 5.6 0.2
Poland -34.4 370.2 7.7 1.3
Russia -38.5 1,872.8 9.9 6.2
Belarus -44.4 71.9 6.0 0.3
Romania -46.1 142.9 4.0 0.4
Ukraine -46.2 527.1 6.4 1.5
Bulgaria -50.0 69.2 5.3 0.2
Estonia -50.8 21.4 11.8 0.1
Latvia -58.5 10.5 2.7 0.0
Lithuania -66.2 17.2 3.6 0.1
(Sources: U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, based in Bonn,
for data on 1990-2003 in first two columns; carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases, excludes emissions/removals from land-use change and
forestry. Data for 2002 per capita carbon dioxide emissions and 2000
percentages of world total from U.N. Development Programme's 2005 Human
Development Report)
Source: Reuters
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