Richard Cowan, PlanetArk 16 Oct 09;
WASHINGTON - An international meeting in December to create tough new goals for fighting global warming will fail to produce a deal, but more modest objectives can be achieved, supporters said on Wednesday.
"I think it's impossible to really get to a binding international agreement" by mid-December in Copenhagen, said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
Speaking at a forum sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Claussen sketched out interim steps that could be taken, with the goal of wrapping up a comprehensive deal by mid-2010, instead of December this year.
"We can get a strong political statement -- an agreement to get to two degrees -- and then a date certain to conclude the negotiations. That may be where we end up" at the conclusion of the Copenhagen meeting, Claussen added.
In July, leading carbon-polluting countries including the United States, agreed at a summit in Italy to try to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to head off severe problems.
But efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass legislation forcing industry reductions of greenhouse gas emissions have slowed and it is now seen as highly unlikely that the Senate will pass a bill this year, even though the House of Representatives did so last June.
NO SPECIFIC TARGET
"The main reason that we are not further along (in international negotiations)... is that the United States is really not able to say what it is prepared to offer in terms of a specific target" for carbon reductions, Claussen said.
Mohamed El-Ashry, an environmental expert and senior fellow at the UN Foundation, echoed Claussen's assessment, saying, "It has become obvious that a comprehensive deal ... is not going to be possible" in Copenhagen.
Instead of focusing on sealing a pact that developed and developing countries would then try to ratify, some "ambitious but achievable goals" could be crafted in Copenhagen, El-Ashry said. Those could include energy-efficiency steps to reduce carbon emissions, without mandating the broader levels of pollution reduction by 2020 and 2050.
He also said progress could be made on efforts to reduce deforestation, which is contributing to global warming.
On Tuesday, leading U.S. senators insisted they were making progress toward passage of a domestic climate change bill that would bolster the international efforts. But that legislation may clear some committees, not the full Senate this year.
Some progress in the Senate, coupled with the House bill and steps already taken by the Obama administration to address global warming, would be seen as evidence of Washington's commitment to tackle climate change after eight years of foot-dragging by the Bush administration, supporters argue.
"We will make our best effort and we will advance this ball and Copenhagen will know we're not fooling around," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry told Reuters on Tuesday.
The House-passed bill aims to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, while a bill proposed in the Senate seeks 20 percent.
Both plans are less ambitious than those of European countries. Some experts fear the U.S. plan would not be enough to avoid "catastrophic" consequences of climate change like worsening drought, floods and the melting of polar ice.
(Editing by Chris Wilson)
