UN: Emission pledges fall short of climate target

Matti Huuhtanen, Associated Press Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

HELSINKI – Emissions cuts pledged by countries in a nonbinding climate accord last year fall short of what's needed to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, the U.N.'s environment agency said Tuesday.

The sobering report by the U.N. Environmental Program comes as climate negotiators prepare for another round of talks next week in Cancun, Mexico.

Even if the voluntary pledges made last year in the so-called Copenhagen Accord are fully met, that will only achieve 60 percent of the emissions cuts required to keep temperatures from rising less than 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels and head off the worst effects of global warming, the UNEP said.

However, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner called those pledges "a good first step," and that the gap can be reduced further with steeper emissions cuts.

"There is a gap between the science and current ambition levels," Steiner said in a statement. "But, what this report shows is that the options on the table right now in the negotiations can get us almost 60 per cent of the way there."

The failure of the annual U.N. conference to produce a climate agreement last year in Copenhagen, Denmark, has raised doubts about whether the long-running, 194-nation talks can ever agree on a legally binding treaty for reining in global warming.

The core shortcoming has been in finding a consensus formula for mandatory reductions in countries' emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases. A dispute between the United States and China has stymied progress on this central element of any global climate deal.

Negotiators are not expected to solve that standoff in Cancun. Instead, delegates will focus on climate financial aid, deforestation and other secondary issues to try to revive momentum toward an umbrella deal at next year's conference in South Africa or at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 2012.

Eighty-five of the 140 countries that have associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord have pledged to cut emissions or rein in their growth by 2020, the report said.

UNEP found that if those pledges are fully met, global emissions levels would reach about 49 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020. That's still 5 gigatons too high to have a chance to limit global warming to 2 degrees C this century.

If none of the pledges made in Copenhagen are fulfilled, emissions would reach 56 gigatons, said the report, which Steiner said was meant to remind countries of how far the Copenhagen decisions would take them.

"But (it's) also to point out that there is still a challenge that the world would have to address even if all of what was promised to each other in Copenhagen was implemented," he told reporters during the launch of the report in Helsinki.

"So the message to Cancun is, Copenhagen did not yield a legally binding outcome but Copenhagen has within the accord a series of pledges that are meaningful and potentially far-reaching," he added.

Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the U.N. organization, said participants at Cancun should build on the Copenhagen pledges and urged rules to avoid "higher emissions because of lenient emission credits."

"We estimated that lenient emission credits would lead to about 1 to 2 gigatons emissions higher in 2020 that would occur otherwise," he told the AP from London. "If these rules are tightened up then they would get 1 to 2 gigatons closer to the 2 degree target."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on countries to make good on their pledges and to further the negotiations in Cancun.

"There is no time to waste," Ban said in a statement. "By closing the gap between the science and current ambition levels, we can seize the opportunity to usher in a new era of low-carbon prosperity and sustainable development for all."

The takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives by Republicans, many of whom dismiss strong scientific evidence of human-caused warming, all but rules out U.S. action for at least two years.

Cancun negotiators hope at least for agreement on a "green fund" to disburse aid that developed countries promised at Copenhagen — $100 billion a year by 2020 — for developing countries to adapt to a changing climate by building seawalls, shifting farming patterns, and installing clean energy sources.

The developing world hopes, too, for better terms for transferring patented green technology from richer nations. In a third area, delegates aim to make progress on the complex issue of compensating poorer nations for protecting their forests, key to the planet's ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

UN body warns Copenhagen climate targets could be missed
Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

HELSINKI (AFP) – The Copenhagen accord targets to cut global warming will be missed unless next week's climate change conference transforms promises into action, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday.

Representatives from 194 countries meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 for a new bid to strike a deal to curb greenhouse gases following on last December's Copenhagen meeting.

"Copenhagen does not have to be the lost summit if we go forward and implement those goals," UN Under Secretary General Achim Steiner told reporters in Helsinki at the launch of UNEP's Emissions Gap Report.

The UNEP's report showed that even if every nation honours the promises it made in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, carbon dioxide emissions levels will still not reach the goal of 44 gigatonnes a year by 2020.

That level is enough to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.

"If we continue with business as usual, emissions could reach 56 gigatonnes by 2020," the UNEP's chief scientist Joseph Alcamo warned via a video conference from London.

The gap of 12 gigatonnes between the goal and the worst-case scenario is more than double the annual emission output of the entire European Union.

Alcamo told AFP that if Copenhagen's best-case scenario comes true, in which more ambitious pledges were honoured, emissions would be cut to 49 gigatonnes a year by 2020.

Steiner said the major issues are energy efficiency in both the developed and developing world, and the failure industrial and commercial sectors to move to low-carbon technologies.

"We've learned in 10 years that we can't just leave it up to the market, it is dependent on environmental policy," he told AFP.

He said this is why nations in Cancun must set up a system of both sanctions and incentives to encourage the 110 signatory nations to the Copenhagen Accord to honour their pledges.

Copenhagen's summit failed to create a binding agreement, and while Steiner did not explicitly call for a legal pact, he did stress the importance of a framework in order to get the international community to cooperate.

"The issue in Copenhagen wasn't technology and money, it was about what was a fair deal... we cannot continue to ask some countries to take responsibility while others get a free ride," Steiner said, though he declined to say which countries were not living up to their responsibilities.

Global Impact Of EU 30 Pct Carbon Cut Small:IEA
Patryk Wasilewski PlanetArk 23 Nov 10;

New European Union proposals for a tough cut in carbon dioxide emissions would have only a limited impact on the global warming process, International Energy Agency chief economist told Reuters on Monday.

The EU has agreed a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, but proposals have surfaced that the cut should reach 30 percent.

Fatih Birol, of the IEA, said the gains from the tougher EU reduction target would roughly equal only two weeks of China's emissions.

"The United States and China are essential for combating climate change globally. We estimate extending Europe's plan to cut emissions from 20 to 30 percent would roughly equal China's two-week gas output," Birol said in an interview.

Birol was skeptical about the chance of a breakthrough in the forthcoming United Nations climate summit in Mexico.

"The wind is not blowing in the right direction for fighting global warming. Frankly, there are virtually no chances for the Cancun summit to end in legally binding agreement," Birol said, adding, "I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this."

Environment ministers from nearly 200 countries are to gather in Cancun, Mexico, at a November 29-December10 conference to try and thrash out details of a global climate deal, which is expected to be finalized in December 2011.

The Cancun talks follow a disappointing summit in Copenhagen last year, which failed to agree on a successor deal to the present Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

(Editing by Jane Baird)

China admits it is the world's biggest polluter
Marianne Barriaux Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – China acknowledged on Tuesday that it is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, as it called on the United States to ensure climate change talks opening next week make progress.

Speaking at a briefing ahead of the UN talks in Mexico, Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate change official, told reporters: "Our emissions volume now stands at number one in the world.

His comments appeared to be the nation's first public recognition of the fact.

Up to now, Chinese officials had not clearly acknowledged the nation's world-leading emissions, which had nevertheless been confirmed by scientists and international organisations such as the International Energy Agency.

They preferred to emphasise the need to use emissions per capita -- where China is far behind developed countries -- as a benchmark.

The November 29 to December 10 talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun are set to open with deep rifts between developed and developing nations, mainly China and the United States -- the two biggest sources of carbon emissions.

The United States wants China to commit to emissions cuts but Beijing argues that it and other developing nations should be exempt from such curbs as they need to grow their economies and lift people from poverty.

It also notes that the emissions of industrialised, mainly Western, countries over the centuries are historically responsible for the build-up of carbon in the atmosphere.

"We hope the United States will play a leadership role and drive the entire process of negotiations," said Xie, vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission -- China's top economic planning agency.

He announced no new Chinese proposals for the talks but vowed the nation would seek to limit growth in its emissions.

"We will not allow our emissions to increase unchecked. China is taking decisive actions to slow down our emissions so that our emissions peak can come at an early date," he said, without giving a timetable.

He also reaffirmed Beijing's position that developed nations must bear the brunt of efforts to curb emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and climate change.

"We will absolutely not accept any obligations that go beyond developing countries' abilities," he said.

"Developed countries have historical responsibilities and must assume their obligations. This is something we must adhere to," he said, when asked whether China should take on more of a role at the Cancun summit.

China has set a 2020 target of reducing carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels. That amounts essentially to a vow of energy efficiency, but its emissions will continue to soar.

It has refused to estimate when its carbon emissions will peak and then begin to fall, although officials have indicated it could take decades.

The talks in Cancun are the latest round of negotiations in a long-running UN effort to forge a global treaty to limit carbon emissions, which are blamed for trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

Xie said the ultimate goal of climate change negotiations should be "a result that not everyone is satisfied with but that everyone can accept."

Scientists say rising temperatures could lead to an increase in catastrophic extreme weather.