Poor accuse Japan of jeopardizing UN climate talks

* Poor nations say Japan backing away from climate goals
* Cancun could collapse if no Kyoto deal-G77 chair
* Japan says wants wider treaty to succeed Kyoto
Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn Reuters AlertNet 1 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Developing countries accused Japan on Wednesday of reneging on promises to extend the fight against global warming beyond 2012 and said the talks in Mexico would fail unless Tokyo backed down.

Japan, which is among almost 40 rich nations curbing greenhouse gas emissions under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol until 2012, said it will not extend the cuts beyond 2012 unless countries like the United States and China also join in.

"I am afraid that, without concessions on the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement in Cancun is not going to fly," said Abdulla Alsaidi of Yemen, the chair of the group of 77 and China, a collection of developing nations at the summit.

He said he hoped the European Union, a main supporter of Kyoto alongside Japan, would persuade Tokyo to soften its position at the meeting. Nearly 200 nations are trying to draft a package of measures meant to help avert floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.

"We are hopeful that they will persuade our good friends the Japanese to reconsider accepting (an extension), without which there will be no successful outcome for Cancun," he told Reuters at the talks in a Caribbean resort.

Under Kyoto, industrialized countries are meant to agree to an extension before its first period runs out in 2012, leaving little time if Cancun fails. The Kyoto Protocol underpins carbon markets, which want assurances of prices beyond 2012 to guide investments in renewable energies and a shift from fossil fuels.

"Japan is not trying to kill Kyoto, but it should be reborn in a single, more effective, legally binding treaty," said Akira Yamada, deputy director general for global issues at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The European Union and other Kyoto backers also want others to join in beyond 2012, but have been less outspoken.

Yamada told Reuters that Japan believes Kyoto is outdated since its limits only cover 27 percent of global emissions. When it was agreed in 1997, it encompassed 56 percent of world emissions including the United States, which never ratified.

Washington argued that Kyoto was fatally flawed by omitting targets for fast-growing emerging economies like China and India. Kyoto obliges its members to cut emissions by an average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

Yamada said Tokyo favored building on the non-binding Copenhagen Accord from a 2009 summit, which includes promises by 140 nations to curb emissions. But it would never write new commitments into Kyoto's addenda.

Non-governmental organizations at the talks awarded Japan a "fossil of the day" on Tuesday, saying that it was doing most to stall progress at the meeting.

The Cancun talks have lower ambitions than the Copenhagen summit, which fell short of an all-encompassing treaty to combat global warming.

Cancun will seek agreement on a smaller package of measures including a "green fund" to channel aid to the poor or efforts to protect tropical forests that soak up carbon as they grow.

Yamada said developing nations had a lot to gain from a deal in Cancun. He noted that Japan has pledged $15 billion in fast-start funds to help developing nations from 2010-2012.

Host Mexico Urges Higher Ambitions At Climate Talks
Robert Campbell PlanetArk 2 Dec 10;

Mexico is pushing parties at the United Nations climate change meeting to strive for the best possible deal, although even the most ambitious agreement will fall short of what is needed to deal with climate change.

Acknowledging that thorny issues such as agreeing to a second round of greenhouse gas emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol are unlikely to be resolved at the talks at the beach resort of Cancun, Mexico's top climate change diplomat told reporters that he felt a major step forward could be made.

"The big challenge is not to just capture in a United Nations document the commitments and actions of developed and developing countries, but to find a way on one hand to increase these ... and find a mechanism to keep going," said Luis Alfonso de Alba at a news conference.

Progress on a new global climate change agreement has been slow as developed countries complain that the United Nations' 1992 climate convention is outdated, focusing too much on them when China's rapid economic growth has made it the world's top carbon emitter.

Most countries agreed on a formula at last year's Copenhagen summit whereby industrialized countries would cut their emissions while emerging economies took "climate actions" to slow growth in greenhouse gases. Objections by some nations prevented it, however, from being formally adopted by the U.N.

"Kyoto covered at most 28 percent of global emissions and had goals that barely surpassed 5 percent of global emissions," de Alba said. "In Cancun we are hoping to come out with a package of emissions reductions that will certainly, if what countries have announced is made concrete, will surpass 18 or 19 percent on a global level."

DEAL NEEDED

The cuts envisioned by parties at Cancun fall short of what scientists say is needed to limit the rise in average global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius, de Alba said, but a deal would breathe new life into the multilateral process.

The Cancun meeting has seen so far little of the rancor and inflexibility that marked the Copenhagen summit as negotiators appear to have accepted that a incremental approach is the best that can be hoped for at this time.

The most controversy has come from Japan's claim that extending the Kyoto protocol is "meaningless" without a broader pact that includes China and the United States, the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases.

The stance of Japan, and some other countries including Canada and Russia over Kyoto, has prompted accusations by environmental groups and some developing countries that rich nations are trying to shirk their commitments.

"Everyone is for the continuity of Kyoto, but in some manner this is linked to complimentary or additional efforts. What we have to be aware of is that we have a brief period to take decisions but this period ends in 2012, not the end of Cancun," de Alba said.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

Brazil's Lula pessimistic on climate talks
Yahoo News 1 Dec 10;

BRASILIA (AFP) – UN talks on climate change under way in Mexico "won't result in anything" because no major leaders turned up, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

The get-together in Cancun "won't result in anything. No big leader is going, only environment ministers at best. We don't even know if foreign ministers are going. So there won't be any progress," said Lula, who himself decided last week not to travel to Mexico.

The Brazilian president told reporters he thought pledges to finance the fight against deforestation in Latin America, Asia and Africa were "nebulous".

He stressed that last year, at a Copenhagen climate change conference that descended into a near-fiasco, he had pushed for the world's wealthy countries to foot the bill for environmental preservation but found them unwilling.

Brazil though, he said, would maintain its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent over the next decade, and Amazon deforestation by 80 percent.

He highlighted the fact that deforestation of the Amazon had fallen to its lowest rate on record, down 14 percent between August 2009 and July 2010 compared to the previous 12 months.

Cutting and burning of the Amazon forest is calculated to cause 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, making Brazil the fourth-biggest greenhouse gas polluter.