Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling

Gerard Wynn, Reuters 4 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali took small steps towards a new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday amid disputes about how far China and India should curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, praised the December 3-14 meeting of 10,000 participants for progress towards a goal of launching formal talks on a long-term climate pact to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

"But in this process, as in so many, the devil's in the detail," he cautioned in an interview with Reuters at a beach-side conference centre on the Indonesian island.

Governments set up a "special group" to examine options for the planned negotiations meant to bind the United States and developing nations led by China and India more firmly into fighting climate change beyond Kyoto.

The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is key to greater involvement by developing nations in tackling their climate-warming emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to curb droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.

But there was skirmishing about how to share out the burden beyond Kyoto and environmentalists accused Kyoto nations Japan and Canada of expecting China and India to do too much.

Canada said in a submission to the talks that "to be effective, a new international framework must include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting economies". It did not mention deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012.

And Japan on Monday called on all parties to effectively participate and contribute substantially. A Japanese official said it was "essential" that China and India were involved.

"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India."

NO FORMAL PROPOSALS

Green groups gave Japan a mock award as "Fossil of the Day" -- made daily to the nation accused of holding up the talks.

De Boer played down the environmentalists' objections, saying that all nations were merely laying out ideas. "A marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date," he said. "No proposals have formally been made."

China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.

The Bali talks are seeking a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the world's top-five emitters, only Russia and Japan are part of Kyoto. The United States is outside the pact, while China and India are exempt from curbs.

And de Boer also said the talks should not focus solely on the plan to launch new negotiations. "There's a bit of a risk that countries that are very keen to see negotiations being launched go over the top and focus only on that," he said.

Developing nations were worried that more immediate issues -- such aid to help them cope with droughts, floods and rising seas -- could "be forgotten in all the excitement about the future", he said.

Outside the Bali conference centre on Tuesday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock swimming lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical islands such as Bali unless they acted.

"Sea level rise is threatening hundreds of millions of people," they said. "Sink or swim!"

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, David Fogarty and Adhityani Arga in Bali; Editing by David Fogarty)


Talks focus on emission curbs on India, China
Straits Times 5 Dec 07;

BALI - THE hunt for a new global deal to fight climate change has started here with 190 countries skirmishing about how far China and India should curb surging greenhouse gas emissions.

'The conference got off to a very encouraging start,' said Mr Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

Some 10,000 delegates are meeting to launch talks on a climate pact to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol.

After an opening day dominated by ceremony, governments set up a 'special group' to look at options for starting two years of talks meant to bind the United States and developing countries led by China and India more firmly to the fight to slow global warming.

Mr De Boer said the group of senior officials would report back to 130 environment ministers who will arrive next week at the talks in the resort island of Bali.

US delegates at the climate conference insisted they will not block a new international pact aimed at reducing potentially catastrophic greenhouse gases, but refuse to endorse mandatory emission cuts.

Many governmental delegations at the meeting see mandatory cuts as crucial to reining in rising temperatures.

The Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, required the 36 signatories to cut emissions by 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.

Meanwhile, China and India say that rich countries must take on far deeper cuts in emissions, and that they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.

Environmentalists have accused Kyoto countries Japan and Canada of asking China and India to do too much.

REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS

FACTBOX - What Bali Means for Carbon Markets
PlanetArk 5 Dec 07;

About 190 countries are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, aiming to kick-start two years of talks to agree a new global climate change deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.

Kyoto has created a carbon market whereby rich countries can meet their binding greenhouse gas emissions limits by funding emissions cuts in developing nations, through a trade in carbon offsets worth $5 billion last year.

That trade has attracted speculators including investment banks and specialised carbon project developers, and has cut the cost for rich countries of meeting their Kyoto targets.

Some supporters of carbon markets want these extended under a Kyoto successor to include huge emissions-cutting projects.

Following are carbon market issues under discussion at Bali:


REDUCED EMISSIONS FROM DEFORESTATION

Under Kyoto, rich countries can earn carbon offsets by investing in projects to plant trees, which soak up the commonest man-made greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).

Now some countries want to include forest protection, whereby rich nations earn offsets by paying countries not to chop trees down. Complicating issues include: calculating the CO2 saved; establishing whether these trees were really at risk; and whether the resulting offsets will make it too cheap for rich countries to offset their own emissions.

The Bali meeting will not decide whether avoided deforestation is included in carbon markets. The meeting may formally approve pilot projects to test inclusion from 2013.


CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE

Burying CO2 underground, also called carbon capture and storage (CCS), is widely believed to be a crucial weapon without which carbon emissions may pass dangerous limits.

The technology is supposed to trap CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are proliferating globally, and pump the gas underground. But there is no commercial-scale power plant project yet anywhere.

That is because of the extra expense to install CCS technology, estimated at $1 billion per plant.

The Bali meet will not decide whether to include CCS in the carbon market but may put it formally on the agenda for possible future inclusion, the UN's top climate official said.

Because no new commercial-scale CCS projects are expected to be operational for several years, the technology is only relevant to carbon markets in a Kyoto successor deal after 2012.


HFC PLANTS

At present under Kyoto rich nations can earn carbon offsets by funding the destruction of potent greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a waste product from the manufacture of refrigerant gases for use in air conditioners.

Projects have drawn criticism because chemical plants, for example in China, now make more money destroying the greenhouse gas than from selling its refrigerant end product, removing any incentive not to produce the waste gas in the first place.

At present factories are not allowed to claim offsets for destroying the production of HFCs above a 2000-2004 baseline.

China wants to be able to sell offsets from subsequent, additional capacity. But the European Union is concerned that will encourage companies simply to manufacture the greenhouse gas in order to earn offsets, making these meaningless.

As a result the Bali meeting may not resolve this issue.

FACTBOX - What's on the Table at the Bali Climate Talks?
PlanetArk 5 Dec 07;

About 190 nations are meeting on Indonesia's Bali island to hammer out details for a broader global pact to fight climate change after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

The United Nations hopes the Bali gathering will launch a two-year dialogue that will lead to a replacement of Kyoto or an expanded version of the pact.

Here is a guide to some of the issues on the table at Bali.

* TIGHTENING THE TARGETS:

-- Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise despite countries' attempts to meet their Kyoto targets. And current Kyoto targets have been criticised as being too-little too-late.

-- The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its latest scientific reports, says it is very likely the rapid rise in greenhouse emissions above natural levels is due to mankind's burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agricultural practices. The European Union says an average temperature increase of no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels should be considered the limit. Beyond this, the world is at risk from dangerous climate change, it says.

* BRINGING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES:

-- Drawing in developing countries excluded from Kyoto's first round, such as China, the world's second biggest carbon emitter, will be crucial if the new agreement is to avoid criticisms of inequity that have dogged Kyoto. The Bush administration pulled out of Kyoto saying it unfairly penalised its economy but is now under pressure to do more to rein in its own emissions.

* CARBON FORESTRY:

-- More carbon is emitted from deforestation than the global transport sector, but forests are not factored into Kyoto.

-- For the past few years forest-rich developing countries such as Indonesia have been lobbying to monetise the "avoided carbon emissions" their forest carbon stores represent.

-- Paying poor countries to protect mature trees prevents carbon emissions while offsetting the financial losses involved in passing up lucrative forest clearances for timber and plantation concessions, supporters of schemes such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD) say.

* TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS:

-- Combatting climate change through the use of cleaner, more energy-efficient technologies has high-level backers on both sides of the rich-poor divide that has threatened to derail global responses to climate change.

-- In May, an IPCC report said US$20 trillion must be spent by 2030 on upgrading the world's energy infrastructure to reduce emissions.

-- While many are keen to push for such transfers, Kyoto's subsidised technology transfers from developed to developing world, via the Clean Development Mechanism, have attracted criticism for focusing especially on a narrow range of lucrative projects in China, and elsewhere for delivering emissions cuts against rather hypothetical baselines.

* ROPING IN OTHER POLLUTION SOURCES:

-- Kyoto's first phase, which ends in 2012, focuses mainly on controlling pollution from industrial sources.

-- At Bali, British and European negotiators are expected to push for emissions from the global aviation and shipping industries to be included in a successor pact. They argue fast-rising emissions from these sectors could cancel out savings made elsewhere if they are not addressed.

Sources: Reuters

(Writing by Gill Murdoch, Singapore Editorial Reference Unit, editing by David Fogarty)