World Wants Tough 2050 Climate Cuts, Split On Path
Date: 24-Mar-09
Country: SWEDEN
Author: Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
World Wants Tough 2050 Climate Cuts, Split On Path Photo: Jo Yong-Hak
View of smokestacks at a thermal power plant in Inchon west of Seoul,
February 1, 2007.
Photo: Jo Yong-Hak
OSLO - Governments broadly support tough 2050 goals for cuts in greenhouse
gas emissions but are split on how to share out the reductions, according to
a new guide to negotiators of a new UN climate pact.
A document to be presented to UN climate talks in Bonn from March 29-April 8
narrows down a list of ideas for fighting global warming in a new treaty due
to be agreed in December to about 30 pages from 120 in a text late last
year.
"It shows that there's an awful lot still to be done. And it also shows what
needs to be done," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat,
told Reuters on Monday of the text by Michael Zammit Cutajar, chairman of a
UN negotiating group.
"It's a good leg-up to a much more precise agenda focusing on filling in the
gaps," de Boer said.
More than 190 governments agreed in 2007 to work out a climate treaty by the
end of 2009 after warnings from the UN Climate Panel that greenhouse gases,
from burning fossil fuels, would bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and
rising seas.
"There is broad support by parties for a science-based indicative goal for
the reduction of greenhouse gases to the middle of the century," the text
says.
Possible goals include halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, deep cuts
to limit a rise in temperatures by 1.5 or 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7-3.6
Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, or setting a low personal emissions
quota for everyone.
PATHWAYS
It adds: "There is a lack of convergence on the issue of the contribution by
different groups of countries to the achievement of the long-term goal and
pathways to it."
Rich nations say they will lead the way in making cuts but dividing up the
burden between rich and poor is a huge tussle. Recession is making wary of
commitments to shift from cheap coal, for instance, to more expensive
renewable energies.
Still, De Boer said a distant 2050 goal was not irrelevant, for instance to
an investor considering building a high polluting coal-fired power plant.
"If I was walking my trolley through the supermarket about to buy a power
station and knew that governments of the world are aiming for minus 50
percent by 2050 I know that it would influence my purchasing choice," he
said.
He also said the text showed "strong convergence" on a need for ambitious
mid-term targets for developed nations as close as possible to reductions of
between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 advised by the UN
Climate Panel.
"The numbers offered so far do not come close to that yet," he said. He
noted that Japan, Russia and Ukraine have not even made proposals for 2020
cuts.
US President Barack Obama wants to reduce US emissions to 1990 levels by
2020, a 15 percent cut from current levels. The European Union has agreed
2020 cuts of 20 percent below 1990 levels, and 30 percent if other rich
nations follow suit.
Zammit Cutajar said his text did not eliminate past proposals, but presented
them in a more concise way. "It doesn't take anything off the table," he
told Reuters.
"It's a good start but there's still way too many options," said Jake
Schmidt, international climate policy director at the US Natural Resources
Defense Council.
The Bonn meeting will be a chance to see if the Obama administration comes
up with new ideas. Former President George W. Bush was isolated from other
rich nations in staying out of the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions
until 2012.
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