Climate change"Agreeing upon a timetable"
Sunday, 16. December 2007, 13:35:58
A deal to negotiate on precisely how to fight climate change is finally struck in Bali
AFTER a fortnight of often tortuous negotiations, and an additional day at the end, 190-odd countries have decided that a global agreement involving all countries is needed to tackle climate change. The “Bali roadmap”, named after the Indonesian island where the deal was struck, is an important milestone. Rich, middle-income and poor countries have acknowledged both the threat of a changing climate and the need for urgent action by all. Substantive negotiations will start within weeks to produce an international convention by the end of 2009 on exactly how countries will meet their “common but differentiated responsibilities” to fight climate change.
Although the roadmap does not state it explicitly, on the insistence of the still somewhat sceptical United States, Canada and Japan, the negotiations will be guided by four scientific reports produced this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These concluded that the planet will probably be in serious trouble—rising temperatures, acidic seas and changing rainfall patterns, among other problems—unless global emissions of greenhouse gases peak within 10 to 15 years and then decline thereafter.
There will be four main pillars to the negotiations. Mitigation, or emissions reduction, will be at the heart of the deal. Developed countries, which are historically responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse-gases, will probably have to cut their emissions by as much as 40% by 2020. Developing countries will be expected to pursue more carbon-friendly development strategies. They will also get special financing from industrialised states to help to adapt to the threats of rising seas, more frequent extreme weather events, falling crop yields and increased migration. Finally, technology will be offered to poorer nations to help them to cut their emissions.
Another important decision was to include in the new regime emissions from deforestation and land degradation. These account for 20 per cent of global emissions and were excluded from current mechanisms to obtain financial rewards from reducing emissions. The aim is for the new deal to be ratified by all countries by the end of 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto protocol expires.
Reaching agreement just to start negotiating might not sound much of an achievement. But it is—even if the roadmap is insufficiently ambitious for most non-governmental organisations. America's George Bush has been reluctant even to discuss climate change, but he has now signed up to talks, if unwillingly. Similarly China, soon to be the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter, was, until this year, an obdurate opponent of negotiating beyond Kyoto. In Bali, Beijing was repeatedly praised for engaging constructively. And Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, received plaudits for ratifying the Kyoto protocol immiediately after taking office on December 3rd.
Various factors have produced the changes of heart. The science of climate change is becoming firmer, more widely accepted and, in some areas, more worrying. In some places the impact of climate change may already be felt. It helps, too, that the new United Nations secretary-genera, Ban Ki-moon, along with firms and campaigners such as Al Gore, have been speaking out more loudly about the threat of climate change.
A sense of urgency was palpable in Bali. But that offered nothing like a guarantee of a deal in 2009. Kyoto took five years to hammer out and, unlike now, did not involve developing countries signing up to firm responsibilities. The Bush administration—as was made clear time and again in Bali—also remains opposed to legally binding emission cuts. Most of the leading candidates in the American presidential election are more progressive on climate change, but the new president will not take office until January 2009.
According to the UN Climate Change Conference: USA distanced itself from Bali compromise (Photo: AP)
Only a few hours after the conclusion of the UN climate conference in Bali, the United States government by the compromise reached distances. Washington was "seriously concerned" about the decisions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the White House said.A follow-up agreement of the Kyoto Protocol should be the right of a state to economic growth and energy security recognise said in the statement published in Washington, the U.S. government. "We have enough weight to the fact that the larger developing countries in the global effort to play an appropriate role," said the White House.The United States want to ensure that countries such as China, India and Brazil to greater efforts to reduce greenhouse-bound. US delegation head Paula Dobriansky, in the final vote on at the conference in Nusa Dua proposed negotiating mandate on the previously announced it has renounced veto. The USA has the only major industrial country, the Kyoto agreement is not ratified.[HAARP_TECHNOLOGY]
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized in the negotiations in Bali, the government of US President George W. Bush tried again, "the progress abzublocken", but ultimately the weight of the scientific and political consensus "not resisted. If they are to Bush's successor will be elected, will immediately the process of negotiating a successor Kyoto Protocol argue, "said Clinton.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) referred to in negotiations achieved dramatic results as a "great success". German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), said he had been "courageous concessions' hopes. The decision to mandate for negotiating a climate agreement refers only indirectly to specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Merkel said in Berlin, according to the agreement in Bali was the way "for the actual negotiations on effective measures relating to climate protection and for binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions". The way to a successor agreement for the Kyoto agreement will be "still rocky." The Chancellor stressed that the success of Bali was without the "united" the Europeans not have been possible.
"Of course we would have Germans and the European Union are already in Bali courageous concessions hoped," Steinmeier said in Berlin. It is but "a great success that all the major countries, especially the United States and China on board."
SPD leader Kurt Beck announced in the "Bild am Sonntag", continue on a sustainable climate agreement to urge "to the doubters and brakeman to further agreements to move." The conference in Bali was "a good start on the way to a new climate agreement." Greens leader Claudia Roth criticized in an interview with the radio station NDR Info, in Bali that no concrete targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases were determined. It had after the conference the impression "that there is a bit of light there, but a lot of shadow". When climate change was "no time to lose" because of this "nothing less than a question of survival", warned Roth.
The new climate protection agreement will be negotiated by 2009 and the Kyoto Protocol to replace the expiring 2012. The Saturday in Nusa Dua agreed negotiating mandate refers to the text itself, no specific targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but there is a reference to the Weltklimarat (IPCC), which recommends such targets.
