NAIROBI — European nations will try to
push the United States and developing countries to get more involved in a
U.N.-led fight against global warming beyond 2012 at 189-nation talks
opening in Nairobi on Monday.
The Nov. 6-17 U.N. climate talks will also look for ways to help
developing nations, especially the poorest in Africa, to adapt to feared
impacts of climate change such as floods, erosion, drought and rising sea
levels.
Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana will open the talks in
Nairobi, to be attended by 6,000 delegates, a week after a British report
warned of apocalyptic long-term costs of ignoring the problem.
Delegates say the talks will focus on how to widen a fight against warming
beyond the Kyoto Protocol, capping emissions of greenhouse gases by 35
industrial nations until 2012, to include outsiders such as China, India
and the United States.
"Nearly everyone agrees that the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully applied,
would be just a little drop in the emissions' bucket," said Detlef Sprinz,
a professor at the University of Michigan and researcher at Germany's
Potsdam Institute.
The European Union wants wider participation from all in the longer term.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
agreed in London on Friday to work closely to build a strong international
alliance.
Of the top four emitters of greenhouse gases -- the United States, China,
Russia and China -- only Russia is bound by Kyoto. Washington pulled out
in 2001, saying caps on emissions would cost U.S. jobs.
KYOTO NATIONS SHOULD LEAD
Developing nations say Kyoto countries should lead the way, arguing that
they are mainly responsible for warming widely blamed on burning fossil
fuels in power plants, factories and cars. But emissions in developing
nations are surging.
"A global challenge needs a global solution," Finnish Environment Minister
Jan-Erik Enestam said. Finland holds the current EU presidency. Kyoto
nations account for only about a third of world emissions.
Thousands of environmental campaigners marched in cities including London
and Sydney on Saturday to urge more action.
Nairobi looks likely to be a round of sparring with no major
breakthroughs. Delegates seem unlikely even to set a deadline for working
out a successor -- environmentalists favour 2008 to give investors time to
adapt for new rules beyond 2012.
At last year's talks in Montreal, ministers agreed to fix new rules "as
soon as possible" and to ensure no gap between the end of Kyoto in 2012
and the start of a new system in 2013.
The U.S. argument that Kyoto would be too costly came under challenge last
week with a report that said the world could face an economic crisis on a
par with the 1930s Depression by ignoring climate change.
"I hope the report will have a huge impact in Nairobi ... the contents are
pretty frightening," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change
Secretariat, said of the British study by former World Bank Chief
Economist Nicholas Stern.