Mandatory greenhouse gas emissions cuts: Japan and Canada wavering?

Green groups say Japan, Canada wavering on climate targets
Charlie McDonald-Gibson, Yahoo News 5 Dec 07;

Japan and Canada appear to be backing away from mandatory emissions cuts expected to be at the heart of a new global accord on fighting global warming, environmental groups said Wednesday.

The charge was levelled as nearly 190 nations met in the Indonesian resort of Bali, looking to take the first steps toward a new agreement to combat climate change when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

Organisers said the key climate talks were on track to hammer out a new roadmap toward tackling global warming, but activists said that the thorny issue of greenhouse gas emissions cuts must be addressed as soon as possible.

Green groups said Japan had revived the idea of pledges to reduce gases blamed for raising the world's temperature, rather than committing to mandatory targets under the future agreement, which is currently the case under Kyoto.

"Emissions reduction targets are the heart of the Kyoto Protocol," youth activists from the Climate Action Network said in a statement. "Japan's proposal would kill it."

Japan quickly rejected the criticisms, and a government spokesperson in Tokyo insisted they were committed to curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

"To say that Japan isn't enthusiastic is off the mark," Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

Angela Ledford Anderson of the US-based National Environment Trust said Canada had meanwhile caused concern by hinting that if emissions pledges are made, all nations would have to sign up to them.

Green groups stress that as the industrialised world has been historically responsible for climate change, they should shoulder the majority of the burden -- and that it would be unfair to make poorer nations pay too much.

"There is a little concern about the positioning of Japan and Canada. Their proposals are really not building on the strengths of the Kyoto Protocol," Anderson told AFP.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last month that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol failed because it did not impose binding cuts on major emitters such as China and India.

The United States -- currently the only industrialised nation not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol -- has rejected mandatory emissions cuts, advocating voluntary targets instead.

Activists say that so far, the United States has kept a relatively low profile at the talks, but Anderson said she thought Japan's emerging stance may be an attempt to win over the US and bring them on board any new agreement.

The European Union backs mandatory targets for wealthy countries, and on Tuesday repeated a previous pledge that they would commit to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 if the rich world follows suit.

Stephan Singer, head of the climate unit with environmental group WWF, said they were also "very concerned" about Japan's initial statements.

He said it was unclear if Tokyo was still intending to stick to a pledge made in Vienna in August, where Kyoto Protocol parties agreed to recognise the need for industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

"We want this to be part of the formal negotiations" when environment ministers arrive later in the conference, which ends December 14, he said.

Singer said they were also seeking clarity on Australia's position.

In his first official act after being sworn in as Australia's leader following elections last month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, further isolating the United States.

However, activists said that Australia had still not stated whether or not they will throw their weight behind emissions cut targets for 2020.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Wednesday that there were many different views on how the talks should proceed, but he said discussions were on track.

"No one is dragging their feet," he told reporters.

Japan climate proposal worries activists
Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, Yahoo News 5 Dec 07;

In an opening gambit, Japan has proposed that the Bali climate conference pursue a broad "least common denominator" approach to negotiating new controls on global-warming gases. Environmentalists couldn't think less of it.

The proposal says nothing about making future targets for emission reductions legally binding — the principle underlying the current Kyoto Protocol.

"Is Japan scrapping the Kyoto Protocol on its 10th birthday?" asked Japanese environmentalist Kyoko Kawasaka. A Canadian colleague spoke of a "plot" by Japan and the United States to block a new Kyoto-style global agreement.

Japanese officials protest that they are simply trying to kick-start negotiations here at the annual U.N. climate meeting, viewed as the most critical such session in years.

The exchange offers an early view of what promises to be a contentious two weeks on this relaxed resort island, where many hope the more than 180 national delegations will decide to launch two years of serious negotiations on a global framework for fending off dangerous climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol 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 before its expiration in 2012.

The United States is now the only industrial nation to reject Kyoto. President Bush's administration says mandatory cutbacks would damage the U.S. economy and objects that they don't cover poorer but fast-developing nations like China and India. Bush favors allowing each country to decide on voluntary, "bottom-up" reductions in emissions.

The pro-Kyoto parties, led by the European Union, seek a "Bali roadmap" for talks that would produce by 2009 a new treaty requiring still-deeper reductions by richer nations after Kyoto expires. Many also want firm but less stringent commitments from China and others to slow the emissions growth of their booming economies.

The EU has pledged 20 percent cutbacks by 2020, and 30 percent cuts if the U.S. joins in. Many scientists believe emissions must be cut at least in half by mid-century to head off the worst of global warming — rising seas, flooding, severe droughts, extreme weather and other drastic impacts.

In a draft submitted for consideration, Japan proposed that talks begin on a post-Kyoto agreement that would address a "global long-term goal for emission reduction" and "policies and measures" for reining in emissions.

It mentions a possible "sectorial approach on bottom-up basis" — meaning nationally, not internationally, determined reductions in power plant or automobile emissions, for example.

Activists criticized the draft's omission of internationally binding cuts.

"It's clear to a number of us that the U.S. would like nothing more than for nothing to happen on the Kyoto track," said Canadian Steven Guilbeault, a leading environmentalist spokesman here. "They will let their Japanese colleagues do that."

Kawasaka, of Tokyo's environmentalist Kiko Network, asked: "Is Japan trying to please the United States?"

"Yes, of course," Hombu Kazuhiko, a Japanese delegation spokesman, told The Associated Press. "We don't want the U.S. out of the final decision-making. Our top priority is to start negotiations." Once that begins, he said, "we can add some more elements."

As for binding emission cuts, "between the lines, we're saying those things," Kazuhiko said. But for now, "we are aiming at some common denominator."

Chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson told AP that the Japanese are acting "on their own." But, he added, "we see a lot of elements in the Japanese proposal that are very much in our thinking."

The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, took a wait-and-see attitude.

"These are exactly the kinds of issues I would expect the group to focus on in the coming days," he said.