Gerard Wynn PlanetArk 7 Jun 11;
U.N. talks have run out of time to meet a December 2012 deadline to put in place a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gases, the U.N.'s top climate official said Monday.
The main aim of the U.N. talks process was to agree a legally binding deal by 2012 but it has gradually turned to mobilizing voluntary action and funds to fight global warming.
The Kyoto Protocol binds almost 40 industrialized countries to emissions cuts from 2008-2012. Poor and emerging economies want to extend the pact, while industrialized nations prefer to replace it.
After years of wrangling over the future of the pact, countries may now try makeshift measures to plug the gap after 2012, such as rolling over existing targets.
To agree new targets with equal legal force to Kyoto countries would have to ratify those in their parliaments, but have run out of time given their next chance to do a deal is in December this year at a conference in Durban.
"Even if they were able to agree on a legal text ... that requires an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, it requires legislative ratifications on the part of three-quarters of the parties, so we would assume that there's no time to do that between Durban and the end of 2012," said Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N.'s climate secretariat.
"Countries have realized this, that they actually stand before the potential of a regulatory gap, and are involved in constructive negotiations as to how they're going to deal with that," she told reporters on the first day of June 6-17 climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
A deal in Durban is widely viewed as unlikely.
The European Union's chief climate negotiator told reporters 2014 or 2015 was a more realistic target for a full legal framework.
"Let's say 2014, 2015 is a broadly realistic time, but if parties could agree to do that earlier the EU would be happy to do so," said Artur Runge-Metzger.
US SAYS NOT TO BLAME
One of the biggest casualties of failure to agree new, binding targets will be international carbon markets, under which developed countries pay for emissions cuts in developing nations to offset against their own targets.
That market in carbon offsets slumped last year to $1.5 billion compared with $7.4 billion in 2007, says the World Bank.
The U.N. talks have stalled over sharing the burden of emissions cuts between industrialized and emerging economies.
The world's second biggest carbon emitter, the United States, demands that top emitter China makes commitments with equal force to its own. China says its priority must be to grow its economy to end poverty.
That has resulted in a stalemate, with a set of voluntary actions agreed in Cancun, Mexico, last December.
Many analysts ultimately lay the blame for the delay at the door of the United States, which has struggled to find support for climate action in its Senate.
The United States blames the slow progress on countries which it says are reluctant even to stand by voluntary action agreed in Cancun.
"The fact that it's such a difficult battle, so much of an uphill discussion, suggests to me the problem is not the United States but others who are not yet ready to move forward on commitments they've made," said the U.S. head of delegation in Bonn, Jonathan Pershing.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Expiry of emissions pact in 2012 bedevils talks
Arthur Max Associated Press Yahoo News 6 Jun 11;
BONN, Germany – Climate negotiators are exploring "constructive and creative" solutions so that wealthy countries keep trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even when binding commitments expire next year, the U.N. climate chief said Monday.
The expiry in 2012 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which bound nearly 40 countries to specific emission reductions targets, looms as delegates from 184 nations seek agreement now on combating global warming.
Hopes for an overarching climate accord, which fell flat at 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, remain dim as negotiators in Bonn spend the next two weeks preparing for another major climate conference in Durban, South Africa, starting Nov. 28.
A key obstacle is the fate of the Kyoto protocol.
Countries generally have fallen into camps of rich and poor on the issue. Developing countries insist the Kyoto obligations be extended and new targets adopted. Industrial countries say they want emerging economies to accept similar binding commitments.
Three countries that fell under the Kyoto mandate — Japan, Canada and Russia — have said they will not renew their commitments after they expire in 2012. The United States was never part of Kyoto.
But Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said negotiators are trying to move outside of the rich-poor boxes.
"Countries are being much more constructive and creative," she told reporters at the start of a two-week negotiating session. "We don't know yet where it's going to lead, but there is a very healthy atmosphere of really listening to each other."
Most countries want to find a formula that also embraces the United States, but the U.S. delegation affirmed it would accept treaty commitments only if developing countries like China and India do as well.
"The U.S. is committed to a legally binding outcome that would engage all major economies," said Jonathan Pershing, the chief delegate. "We are not committed to any outcome which would only obligate developed countries ... nor are we committed to an empty agreement merely for the sake of an agreement."
In a sign of the complexity of the talks, the formal start of the conference was delayed by more than half a day while delegates haggled over the agenda, with several countries insisting on the inclusion of their special interests.
Saudi Arabia, for example, wanted a discussion on how it could be compensated for the loss of oil revenue.
The U.S. delegation wanted more work done on verifying that countries meet their commitments. That issue, pitting the U.S. against China, nearly caused the collapse of the last year's conference in Cancun, Mexico, before a skeleton deal was done.
"By Durban, we should have guidelines developed for reporting and verification," Pershing said. He linked progress on "transparency" with finalizing a Green Climate Fund, a $100 billion annual payment to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change and move toward low-carbon economies.
The deal struck in Cancun, he said, was "a balanced package which included financing and transparency."
Reports of record high greenhouse gas emissions and unprecedented carbon levels in the atmosphere added a sense of urgency to the talks.
The International Energy Agency said energy-related carbon emissions last year reached record levels — more than 30 gigatons, or 5 percent more than the previous peak in 2008. Experts had predicted the financial crisis that caused a sharp dip in emissions in 2009 would continue in 2010.
The Paris-based agency said the figures were "a serious setback" to hopes of limiting the rise in the Earth's average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) above preindustrial levels.
Another report by the U.S. government monitoring station in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, recorded carbon levels in May of 395 parts per million, compared with 290 at the beginning of the industrial revolution 150 years ago. Scientists believe atmospheric concentration of carbon is trapping the Earth's heat and causing it to gradually warm.
Also contributing to the apprehension was uncertainty over Japan's future energy policy, and whether it will adhere to its pledge to reduce emissions by 25 percent after a March 11 tsunami triggered an ongoing nuclear disaster at its Fukushima Daii-ichi plant.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan last week reaffirmed its pledge to reduce emissions. But a Japanese delegate at the Bonn talks said the target was likely to be dropped.
Japan's 120 million people produce 4 percent of the world's emissions, and the country is considered a key player at the climate talks.
'Bad news' on warming should spur UN talks: climate chief
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 6 Jun 11;
PARIS (AFP) – The UN's climate chief urged negotiators gathering on Monday for new talks to heed a double dose of "bad news" that global warming could bust a threshold widely considered safe.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), urged nations at the 12-day talks in Bonn to uphold their pledge to peg warming to 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
"Now, more than ever, it is critical that all efforts are mobilised towards living up to this commitment," she said in a webcast press conference.
Figueres pointed to "bad news" in the form of carbon emissions data released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The Paris-based IEA said last month that carbon from energy use reached a record high in 2010 while NOAA said atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in May had scaled a new peak.
The Bonn talks are meant to lay the groundwork for the next round of high-level negotiations in December in Durban, South Africa.
Some wealthy nations led by the United States favour restricting the scope of the Durban round to consolidating progress made in Cancun, Mexico, last December.
These include the creation of a "green fund" for developing countries that could reach 100 billion dollars a year, a system for monitoring national schemes to reduce emissions, and programmes to boost clean technologies and help poor nations cope with climate change.
"If we take these steps and start to build the new institutions needed for a pragmatic international regime, COP 17 in Durban will be a solid success," said Jonathan Pershing, the top US negotiator in Bonn.
Developing nations, led by China and other major emerging economies, have embraced these goals, but major disagreements remain on how they should take shape.
Another big area of discord is over the future of the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol, the sole treaty that sets down legally-binding emissions targets.
These requirements only apply to advanced economies, except the United States, which refuses to ratify Kyoto.
The "G77 and China" group -- a bloc of 131 developing countries -- reiterated Monday its demand for Kyoto pledges to be renewed when the present commitment period ends at the end of 2012.
This would be "one of the key outcomes" in Durban, the group said in a press release. "Its continuity demands a strong political decision from all parties."
Russia, Japan and Canada, however, have said they will not sign up for a new round of cuts unless rising giants such as China, India and Brazil accept constraints as well.
The European Union (EU) on Monday backed a second roster of pledges but warned this position should not be taken for granted.
"There is the impression that the EU will easily move into a second commitment period, that it is a foregone conclusion. That is not the case," said Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator.
The EU will renew Kyoto vows "only if there is also agreement on the other side towards an agreement that covers all those major economies at the same time," he said. "It cannot stand alone."
European nations, he pointed out, only account for 11 or 12 percent percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
"We would not see that as success in Durban to say... 'we don't have anything else for the other 88 or 89 percent'."
Figueres said that there was some good news despite scientific gloom.
"Quite a few countries, including the biggest economies, are clearly building new policies that promote low carbon goals," she told journalists, citing China and Britain in particular.
Private capital was also flowing into low-carbon technologies, she said, noting that the UN climate scientists concluded recently that, by mid-century, up to 80 percent of the world's energy needs could come from renewable sources.
Climate change: self-interest may save us
With countries beginning to see action on global warming as being in their own interests, there is reason for optimismhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Julian Hunt and Terry Townshend guardian.co.uk 5 Jun 11;
No major breakthroughs are likely to be made at this week's meeting of climate change negotiators in Bonn, in the latest round of UN talks before the next major annual summit in Durban, in December. However, this meeting has assumed heightened significance in the light of the record rise in carbon dioxide emissions globally for 2010 (30.6 gigatonnes), recently announced by the International Energy Agency – data that comes despite the most serious global recession for at least a generation, and has increased doubt that so-called dangerous global warming (temperature rises of more than 2C) can be prevented. Is all now lost?
A new study by Global Legislators' Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe) and the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics suggests that there is still room for optimism. The report shows that the massive attention devoted to the UN process, vital as that framework is, has diverted focus from national capitals, where significant domestic global-warming legislation is advancing.
The research (which focused on 15 key developed and developing countries, and the EU) indicates that the positive picture on domestic legislation coincides with a fundamental shift in attitudes. There is a growing realisation that action on climate change is in the national interest, and this moves the debate on significantly: previously discussions were largely about sharing a global burden – with governments, naturally, trying to minimise their share.
There is increasing recognition of the significant co-benefits of climate change legislation – strengthening energy security, increasing resource-efficiency, improving air quality and securing a competitive advantage in new markets for clean and low-carbon technologies, goods and services. Indeed, those countries with strong national legislation are, perhaps not surprisingly, attracting the most inward investment on low-carbon technologies because there is business certainty (rather than high regulatory risk) for such investments.
This development is crucial because a comprehensive international climate change agreement – as opposed to the incremental one agreed at Cancun – will probably be possible only when a critical mass of countries is committed, because of self-interest rather than perceived altruism, to taking sufficient action. In other words, such an agreement will only reflect political conditions, not define them.
To be sure, the climate change policy picture is not uniformly positive across the 15 countries. One reversal, for instance, was the withdrawal of the US federal climate-change bill from Congress last summer.
Even when reversals occur, however, countervailing forces are sometimes at work. In the United States, the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included about $80bn for clean-energy research, development and deployment, and some $16.8bn for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programmes.
Progress is being achieved at different speeds in different countries, partly because climate change doesn't affect the world uniformly, and because the incentives are different for each country.
Several large developing countries are moving towards comprehensive climate change legislation. China has just released its 12th five-year plan, including significant targets for reducing the carbon intensity of its economy by 40-45%, from 2005 levels, by 2020, and is developing a comprehensive national climate-change law.
India has set up an Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategy for Inclusive Growth, the recommendations of which will form a central theme in the 12th Five Year Plan in 2012.
Brazil already has a very low carbon energy matrix — it gains most of its energy from renewable sources, primarily hydropower for electricity and ethanol for vehicles and is focusing its legislation on deforestation — its major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Mexico is examining all existing energy-related laws to establish what amendments need to be made to make them consistent with climate change goals, in addition to developing comprehensive climate change legislation.
South Africa has issued a White Paper on climate change with a view to passing a climate change law ahead of the Durban climate change conference later this year.
Encouraging as these developments are, they are not enough to avoid dangerous climate change, which many scientists believe will result from a 3C to 4C increase in global temperatures, a probable irreversible tipping point for continent-sized areas of changing land cover, and for ice on sea and land.
Although this is hugely disappointing on several levels, national legal and policy frameworks to measure, report, verify and manage carbon are being set up. These could be ratcheted up as governments experience the self-interested benefits of tackling climate change.
If this happens, the goal must be to translate such progress into a comprehensive international deal – the poorest countries in particular will need international assistance to help them to adapt to the impact of climate change.
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