Divisions at climate change meeting

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Dec 07;

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urged the United States to follow his country's lead and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while rich and poor nations appeared divided Wednesday over what a future climate change pact should look like.

Rudd signed documents this week to formally adopt the accord that caps greenhouse gas emissions, reversing a decade of Australian resistance and leaving the United States as the only industrialized country to refuse to sign on.

"Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution," the newly elected prime minister told the Southern Cross Broadcasting radio network in Australia.

"And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state," he said.

His comments put further pressure on the United States at the U.N. Climate Change conference in Bali, where nearly 190 nations hope to launch a two-year negotiating process that will result in a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Failure to continue reducing emissions, experts warn, will almost certainly lead to catastrophic droughts and floods, and deaths linked to heat waves and disease.

The 175-nation Kyoto agreement of 1997 requires 36 industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" — carbon dioxide and some other industrial, agricultural and transportation byproducts — by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The United States says it wants to be part of the negotiations on a follow-up accord, but refuses to endorse mandatory cuts in emissions favored by the European Union, choosing instead to focus on funding renewable energy projects and improving energy efficiency.

While the conference is in its early days, differences already were emerging, mostly over what should go into the "Bali roadmap," which will lay out the subjects for discussions in the years to come.

Japan, for example, offered up a proposal that doesn't include targets, while the EU has come out with a detailed wish list that includes demands for industrialized countries to take the lead in approving mandatory cuts, strengthening the carbon market and boosting funding to help poor countries adapt.

Meanwhile, delegates and activists say poor countries led by the Group of 77, which represents 132 mainly developing countries and China, have demanded that rich countries speed up the process of providing them with technologies that would help reduce pollution or improve energy efficiency.

They also want funds to adapt to the impact of global warming.

Meena Raman, chairman of Friends of the Earth International, said marathon debates over the issue, some running late into the night, indicated that the West wasn't taking their concerns seriously.

"How on earth can you talk about targets if you don't want to engage on the scope, the depth and need of technology?" she asked reporters. "In the last two days, the sincerity and urgency that is needed and goodwill from the (West) is not happening."

Few had criticism for Australia, however.

Rudd's Labor Party swept to power last month, ending more than 11 years of conservative rule under former Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch ally of President Bush.

Rudd has said he wants Australia to become a broker through "creative middle-power diplomacy." Though small by population, it is wealthy, developed, and has influence among its allies like the United States and Britain, as well as trade partners such as China.

"We've had a bad record on climate change," said Rudd, who is due to arrive in Bali next week. "It's time to put that behind us. I believe that we now need to do whatever we can to bridge the gap between the developed and developing worlds, because right now the gap is huge."

In addition to the United States, he said, China and India, which refuse to sign any deal that would slow their own pace of development, must be prepared to make commitments in the fight.

Bali climate talks focus on Kyoto offsets
Gerard Wynn, Reuters 5 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Rich nations have less than a month to go before they must start meeting emissions caps under the Kyoto Protocol that aims to fight global warming.

Yet 16 of the 36 industrialized nations bound by Kyoto limits are over their targets set for 2008-2012 and may have to buy carbon offsets to meet these, drawing criticism at a U.N. meeting in Bali.

"There's this quite strong feeling (among poorer countries) that a number of commitments in those areas, commitments from the past, have not been met and will be conveniently forgotten when we switch to a new agenda item called the future," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s head of climate change.

About 190 nations are meeting in Bali to try to initiate two years of talks that will lead to a successor pact from 2013. The goal is to agree on a broader climate pact bringing together rich and poor countries because targets under the existing Kyoto Protocol have been deemed too weak for the longer term.

Kyoto obliges rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent by 2008-12 from 1990 levels, but allows them to pay developing countries to cut emissions on their behalf through a trade in carbon offsets.

Although Kyoto came into force in 2005, its commitment period only begins from Jan 1, 2008 till 2012.

Some developing countries, including Brazil, think rich nations should make painful emissions cuts at home, curbing their use of fossil fuels, before devising new ways to fund cheap cuts overseas such as reducing deforestation. Clearing tropical rainforests is a big contributor to climate change.

To focus on local action, the European Union has proposed a 10 percent limit on offsetting when meeting its goal to curb emissions by a fifth by 2020, de Boer told Reuters.

The EU is due to detail that measure next month and on Wednesday declined to comment on a 10 percent cap.

RISING

The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying in 2001 it was unfair to exempt developing countries from targets, and this week said that offsetting had allowed EU emissions to rise in spite of Kyoto caps.

Emissions of six of the 15 older members of the EU rose in 2005, putting the EU-15 about 2 percent below 1990 levels versus a Kyoto target of 8 percent.

"Emissions are rising, within that context (Kyoto) is not doing its job," said Harlan Watson, the head of the U.S. delegation in Bali. "I fully expect the EU will meet its targets through the (carbon offset) mechanisms."

The carbon offsetting scheme under Kyoto, called the Clean Development Mechanism, suits rich and many poorer countries by making it cheaper for rich countries to meet their targets and helping developing nations to curb emissions.

The U.N. body supervising the scheme said on Wednesday the current pipeline of offset projects could deliver up to 500 million tons of emissions cuts per year from 2008-12, equivalent to the annual emissions of Australia.

But many less developed countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia told the conference they were missing out on the benefits.

That's partly because carbon offsetting pays companies to cut emissions, and doesn't favor African countries which have few emissions to start with. The U.N. panel proposed on Wednesday to waive fees for project developers in such states.

Outside the main Bali conference centre, three environmental activists wearing hard hats waved a placard reading -- "Youth wants hard emissions caps for industrialized countries."

"We want a 30 percent cut in domestic emissions (by 2020)," said Stephan Singer, policy officer at WWF, referring to rich countries. "We need offsetting on top of that cap. We need the money going into the South."

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, Editing by David Fogarty)


China wants climate talks to back technology fund
Chris Buckley, Reuters 5 Dec 07;

BEIJING (Reuters) - China wants rich economies to back a fund to speed the spread of greenhouse gas-cutting technology in poor nations as it seeks to persuade delegates at global warming talks the focus of responsibility belongs on the West.

At talks in Bali to start crafting an international agreement to fight climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, some rich countries have said a new pact must spell out greenhouse gas goals for all big emitters.

China is emerging as the planet's biggest source of carbon dioxide from industry, vehicles and farms that is trapping more atmospheric heat and threatening disastrous climate change. Under Kyoto, it and other poor countries do not shoulder fixed goals to control such pollution.

While Beijing fends off calls for targets, it will press its own demands, especially that rich nations back a big boost in funds to encourage the spread of clean technology, Chinese climate policy advisers told Reuters.

"We want to see a substantial fund for technology transfers and development," said Zou Ji of the People's University of China in Beijing, a member of his country's delegation to Bali.

"There's been a lot of talk about developing and spreading clean coal-power and other emissions-cutting technology, but the results have been puny, and we want the new negotiations to show that developed countries are now serious about it."

That fund could come under a "new body to promote technology transfers," he said, adding that it would take some time for negotiations to settle on specifics.

China's demand for clear vows on technology, as well as a big boost in funds for adaptation to droughts, floods and rising sea levels caused by global warming, is real enough.

It also part of Beijing's effort to keep a united front with other developing countries and shine the spotlight back on rich nations, especially the United States, the world's biggest emitter, which has refused to ratify Kyoto.

"The real obstacle is the United States," said Hu Tao of Beijing Normal University, who previously worked in a state environmental think tank. "China must surely be part of any solution. But the answer has to start what the developed countries do to cut their own emissions and help us cut ours."

China says it is unfair to demand that it accept emissions limits when global warming has been caused by wealthy countries' long-accumulated pollution.

CLEAN POWER TECHNOLOGY

The United Nations recently issued data showing that Americans produced an average 20.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide each in 2004, versus 3.8 metric tons each for Chinese people.

A senior Chinese climate change policy-maker, Gao Guangsheng, last week told Reuters that China's hopes to obtain clean power-generation equipment had been frustrated by foreign politicians' and companies' worries about intellectual property theft, foregone profits and sensitive technology.

The adviser Zou said a technology transfer body could pair government support with private investors, easing worries about commercial returns and intellectual property safeguards.

China has set itself ambitious domestic targets to increase energy efficiency and replace carbon-belching coal with renewable energy sources, but it failed to meet its efficiency target in 2006.

An influx of funds could underwrite joint research projects and help developing countries create their own energy-saving devices, said Zhang Haibin, an expert on climate change negotiations at Peking University.

"The point is that we don't just want to buy fish. We want to learn how to fish for ourselves," Zhang said. "But if you want to keep selling fish for high prices, you won't teach me."

(Editing by Nick Macfie)