Barcelona, Nov 06, 2009 -- Ghanaian Chronicle/All Africa Global Media
United Nations climate talks resumed yesterday in Barcelona after
African nations agreed to return to the table that negotiates emissions
targets for 37 industrialized countries.
About 50 African nations dropped their boycott of talks on renewing the
Kyoto Protocol accord, John Ashe, chairman of the negotiations, told
delegates after a day-long hold-up.
The UN needs all parties to the 1997 Kyoto agreement to agree on
renewing greenhouse-gas limits that are binding on developed countries
only through 2012. The protest threatened to derail a two-year program
to conclude a new global-warming treaty in Copenhagen at a UN climate
summit starting Dec. 7.
African nations had frozen talks on all Kyoto issues, demanding
developed countries make more ambitious pledges for emissions cuts after
2012. The Africans, led by Algeria, rejected talks about topics such as
carbon offsets, which can be traded in markets, and new ways to measure
gases scientists blame for climate change.
"The talks cannot go forward without them," Peter Krogh Sorensen,
Denmark's counselor for climate and energy in South Africa, said earlier
in an interview in Barcelona.
The African bloc called for the 27-nation European Union, Australia,
Canada, and other developed nations that are parties to Kyoto to agree
to cut their emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
That's the maximum sought by a UN scientific panel in a range from 25
percent to 40 percent. Norway is the only country so far to make a 40
percent promise.
'Round in Circles'
"We're going around and around in circles on side technical issues
rather than the core issue," Alfred Wills, South Africa's lead
negotiator, said in an interview. "The countries which have put pledges
on the table which are within the range required by science are Norway
and Japan. That's it."
Under the agreement brokered by Ashe, 60 percent of the remaining
negotiating time in Barcelona will be dedicated to discussing the
targets, and 40 percent will be used to discuss other elements, he said.
"The position we have taken is in no way intended to block the progress,
but to ensure we have ambitious numbers," Pa Ousman Jarju, a Gambian
delegate speaking on behalf of the African nations, said after the
agreement.
Lumumba Di-Aping, a Sudanese negotiator who speaks on behalf of the
G-77, a group of 130 developing nations, said that now with extra time
being allocated to discussing targets, progress must be made.
'Dodging the Issue'
"We have to concentrate our minds on finding real solutions and real
discussions and real options going forward," Di-Aping said. "The
argument that numbers cannot be concluded until we go to Copenhagen is
simply dodging the issue."
Artur Runge-Metzger, lead negotiator for the European Commission, the
EU's executive arm, said the bloc agreed that targets on the table
aren't ambitious enough while urging talks to make progress on "all
fronts," rather than focusing solely on the numbers.
"There's a clear premise in this process that nothing is decided until
everything is decided," Runge-Metzger said in an interview. "Things will
have to evolve in parallel and over time."
The UN talks are divided into the Kyoto Protocol track to set targets
for all developed countries except the U.S., which never ratified the
treaty, and a separate set that includes the U.S., and is also
discussing actions developing nations such as China and India will do to
cut their greenhouse gases.
U.S. Position
The U.S. is waiting on passage of proposed climate laws through American
legislators in Congress before making a formal pledge under the second
track of UN talks, according to its lead negotiator, Jonathan Pershing.
The 27-nation EU has said it will lower emissions by 20 percent in the
same timeframe and increase that to a 30 percent cut if a global deal is
reached. Japan has pledged to cut gas discharges by 25 percent in the
three decades through 2020 while Norway has made a 40 percent reduction
pledge.
Australia's 25 percent reduction pledge is from 2000 levels, which were
higher than 1990, so it isn't ambitious enough, according to Wills.
Other developed countries that are members of the Kyoto Protocol include
Russia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.
"People are dying now while those who are responsible historically are
not willing to take action," Kamel Djemouai, an Algerian envoy who heads
the bloc's negotiators said earlier, referring to the bulk of polluting
gases in the atmosphere that have come from industrialized countries
over the last century.
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG
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