UN Climate Talks Advance on Forests, Industry

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 27 Aug 08;

ACCRA - UN climate talks in Ghana are making progress on ways to help developing nations slow deforestation and have eased disputes over use of greenhouse gas targets for industrial sectors, delegates said on Monday.

"It's moving pretty well now," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters of the Aug. 21-27 talks which are defining the building blocks of a new UN global warming pact meant to be agreed by the end of 2009.

"We're getting beyond some of the rhetoric," he said of the 160-nation meeting among about 1,500 delegates. "People are beginning to understand each other better."

The Accra meeting is the third session this year under a plan to agree a broad new climate treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets greenhouse gas targets for just 37 developed nations.

Accra is focusing largely on ways to encourage tropical developing nations to slow the rate of deforestation and debating whether industries such as steel, aluminium or cement should have international benchmarks for efficiency.

"The Accra meeting has been very successful so far," said Luiz Figueiredo Machado, a Brazilian expert chairing talks on new ways for countries ranging from the United States to China to curb emissions.

Accra is not meant to end with any firm agreements.

Many delegates left the last session, in Germany in June, saying the talks were lagging in an assault on climate change that could drive more species to extinction, bring more desertification, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.


TREES

"The chances that it (a new UN scheme to slow deforestation) will go ahead, in my mind, are much higher," Machado told Reuters. He said that there was an "overwhelming consensus" on the importance of the project.

Trees soak up carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow and release it when they are burnt, often by poor farmers clearing land for farming. UN data suggests it accounts for 20 percent of greenhouse gases from human sources.

Cash to slow deforestation is widely seen as an incentive to get poor nations to start slowing their rising emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels.

Emily Brickell, forest campaigner with the WWF environmental group, said it might cost between US$20 to $30 billion a year to set up a system to safeguard tropical forests, perhaps using a mixture of carbon markets or donor funds.

The talks are also seeking to bridge differences over whether to impose sectoral targets for industries, an idea championed this year by Japan.

Some developing nations, smarting from the collapse of world trade talks last month, fear such benchmarks could be a backdoor way to impose trade barriers on their less efficient producers of metals or cement.

But Japan clearly stated during the talks that it did not favour imposing common international standards. "What I saw and heard in our debates on sectoral actions and approaches was a very fruitful debate," Machado said. "It clarified the issue."

Ghana Climate Talks Make Progress to Save Forests
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 28 Aug 08;

ACCRA - The world has made progress on ways to save tropical forests as part of a planned new UN pact to slow global warming, the UN's top climate official said at 160-nation talks in Ghana ending on Wednesday.


"We are still on track, the process has speeded up," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said of the Aug. 21-27 negotiations. "There is a growing sense of urgency."

He said the meeting expressed widening understanding of a need to protect forests and came up with many ideas of how to do it. Burning of forests to clear land emits about 20 percent of greenhouse gases from human activities.

"We cannot come to a meaningful solution on climate change without coming to grips with deforestation," he said. Plants soak up carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow and release it when burnt down or when they rot.

Governments are trying to find a deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, binding 37 developed nations to curb greenhouse gases until 2012. Neither the United States nor China, the top two greenhouse emitters, have limits under Kyoto.

Accra is the third meeting in a marathon meant to end with a new UN accord by the end of 2009 to slow rising temperatures that the UN Climate Panel says will bring more heatwaves, droughts, rising seas and more powerful storms.

Countries came up with proposals to raise tens of billions of dollars in funds for forest protection -- such as a Saudi Arabian call for a levy on the logging industry or a proposal by the Pacific island of Tuvalu to tax air tickets and shipping.

RAILS LAID

De Boer said a highlight of Accra was agreement that a text on possible new actions to fight global warming would be drawn up before the next meeting in Poznan, Poland, in December.

"We may have something in Poznan pretty close to a negotiating text," he said.

But many delegates cautioned that a deal was still way off, with deep splits about how far rich and poor nations should share out future burdens of cutting greenhouse gases, mainly emitted by burning fossil fuels.

Brice Lalonde, representing France which holds the rotating European Union presidency, likened the talks to a railway journey. "We have laid the rails," he told Reuters. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed".

Environmental group Greenpeace said the meeting lacked urgency and accused Japan, Canada, Russia and Australia of doing too little. "In Accra there have been some positives and negatives but progress has not been enough," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace.

De Boer said the talks made some progress in ironing out disputes over the use of sectoral approaches for industry, for instance the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by making a tonne of cement, steel or aluminium.

Japan favours such sectoral benchmarks but many poorer nations fear it could be a prelude to international trade barriers on inefficient, polluting producers.

"The talks here have made it clear that sectoral approaches are not about imposing targets. Sectoral approaches are something that a government may or may not choose to do on a national level," de Boer said.

"The meeting has helped to crystallise some ideas, said Angela Anderson of the Washington-based Pew Environment Group.

But she said many delegations were waiting to see who would succeed US President George W. Bush in January 2009. Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCai (Editing by Dina Kyriakidou)