Richard Ingham Yahoo News 12 Dec 08;
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The world's forum for tackling climate change on Friday agreed a programme designed to culminate in a treaty that would expunge the darkening threat to mankind from greenhouse gases.
The 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set a schedule of work in 2009 designed to conclude with an historic pact in Copenhagen next December.
Taking effect after 2012, the envisioned deal will set down unprecedented measures for curbing emissions of heat-trapping carbon gases and helping poor countries in the firing line of climate change.
UNFCCC members will submit proposals for the treaty's text in the early months of 2009.
By June, these will then be condensed from what is likely to be a massive document into a blueprint for negotiations.
Further decisions were awaited Friday by members of the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol -- the first global deal for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions -- that would complement the work programme.
Friday's agreement sets the stage for a year-long process revolving around two big issues: who should make the biggest sacrifices on curbing greenhouse gases, and how to beef up support for poor countries exposed to climate change.
The December 1-12 talks in Poznan, Poland ended with a two-day ministerial-level gathering that failed to make any big advance on these core issues.
But the arduous process was given a boost in morale by the adoption at a European Union summit in Brussels of a deal to slash EU emissions by 20 percent by 2020.
Delegates in Poznan had held their breath, fearful that backsliding by the EU would fatally sap momentum in the UN track.
The final day of the Poznan talks was powerfully spurred by green guru Al Gore, 2007 co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and by US Senator John Kerry, acting as pointman for President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to root out the heart of George W. Bush's policies on climate change.
"Our home, Earth, is in danger," Gore told a packed hall.
"We are moving towards several tipping points that could within less than 10 years make it impossible to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's habitability for human civilisation -- unless we act quickly."
But, said Gore, momentum was at last building -- in the United States, Europe, China, Brazil and elsewhere -- towards a treaty in Copenhagen that could roll back the threat.
"Yes, we can!" Gore said to a standing ovation, borrowing Obama's campaign slogan.
The EU's so-called "20-20-20" deal seeks to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, make 20 percent energy savings and bring renewable energy sources up to 20 percent of total energy use.
It is the most ambitious scheme of any major economy for dealing with climate change and energy use.
It throws down the gauntlet to the United States, Japan and other rich countries to follow suit in next year's negotiations.
Scientists point the finger for climate change at human influence, especially the burning of fossil fuels in power stations, factories and by cars, as well as through deforestation and agriculture.
Gigatonnes of greenhouse gases spew each year into the Earth's atmosphere, acting like an invisible blanket that stores solar heat and changes the climate system. By century's end, sea levels will rise, deserts will grow and storms floods and droughts could become more frequent.
Even though the peril now seems clear, addressing its source carries an economic cost, because it implies a switch away from fossil fuels that remain the backbone of the world's energy supply.
This is why the negotiations in 2009 are likely to be tense.
Rich countries acknowledge their historic role in the problem but say emerging powers like China and India must also slow their surging carbon pollution.
Developing nations argue that the industrialised world should lead by example, and foot the bill for clean-energy technology and coping with the impact of global warming.
FACTBOX: Results of U.N. December 1-12 climate talks
Reuters 12 Dec 08;
(Reuters) - A 189-nation U.N. climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, has been reviewing progress toward a new U.N. pact meant to be agreed at the end of 2009.
The following are among sticking points and decisions at the December 1-12 talks. The meeting is meant to end later on Friday but delegates say it might be extended into Saturday:
"POZNAN SOLIDARITY PARTNERSHIP"
Host Poland suggested that the outcomes should be called the "Poznan Solidarity Partnership." But many delegates said progress was too scant to deserve a grand title.
FUND TO HELP ADAPTATION
The meeting was split over how to allow developing nations to get cash from a fund to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change such as more floods, droughts and rising seas. The Pacific island state of Tuvalu accused rich nations of tying up the Adaptation Fund in "red tape" and another developing country delegate said they were being treated "like thieves." Rich nations say there must be safeguards to ensure cash will be properly used. U.N. estimates are that the fund will total $300 million a year by 2012 but that costs of adapting to warming will run to tens of billions of dollars a year by 2030.
CARBON MARKETS
The meeting was also divided about whether to allow investments in power plants in developing nations to earn carbon credits if they fitted equipment to trap greenhouse gases and pump them underground.
Climate negotiators drafted measures to speed up U.N. approval of carbon offset projects in poor nations, under the Clean Development Mechanism. The meeting delayed until 2009 a decision on whether to allow new projects to sell carbon offsets from destroying potent greenhouse gas called HFCs.
TIMETABLES
The talks agreed to work out by June a first draft text of the climate pact to be agreed in Copenhagen. They also agreed to hold a meeting in March 29-April 8 in Bonn, Germany, another in Bonn from June 1-12 and a third in August/September at a venue yet to be decided. The new climate treaty will be adopted in Copenhagen at a meeting from November 30-December 11, 2009.
An 84-page list of the main proposals for the new climate pact -- compiled from thousands of pages of documentation -- swelled to more than 100. It would be cut in coming months.
FORESTRY
The talks made little progress on proposals to include tropical forests in a new treaty. Forests soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow. A Poznan text added a mention of a "need to promote the full and effective participation of indigenous people and local communities." But indigenous peoples objected that it stopped short of talking about their "rights" to land. Environmentalists also said the text did not clearly rule out replacing old forests with faster-growing plantations.
KYOTO NATIONS
Backers of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the current U.N. plan for fighting global warming until 2012, agreed that a new period beyond 2012 should focus on deeper cuts in emissions -- rather than, for instance, other yardsticks such as the amount of carbon emitted per dollar of economic output.
The group reiterated a 2007 statement that rich nations would have to cut emissions on average by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of global warming under scenarios by the U.N. Climate Panel. Almost no countries are considering such deep cuts.
(Compiled by Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn)
