ENVIRONMENT: OPEC Takes Refuge in G-77 Unity

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

CARACAS, Dec 1 1997 (IPS) - The 11 members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have reached the international conference on climate change in Kyoto equipped with the so far steadfast unity of the developing South and the discrepancies among the industrialised North.

High-level members of the Venezuelan delegation to the third conference on global warming, which began Monday, told IPS that OPEC believes measures are needed to avoid climatic disaster.

But those measures “must not hurt the countries of the South, nor must they be adopted at the cost of their development in general and that of petroleum exporters in particular,” said a Venezuelan delegate who preferred not to be identified.

Petroleum and the other fossil fuels are responsible for global warming, according to the majority of scientists, who warn that if urgent measures are not taken to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the consequences for the planet will be disastrous.

When the OPEC ministers held their bi-annual conference over the weekend in Jakarta, their position as a group was already set.

The members of OPEC belong to the Group of 77 (G-77), which links 131 developing countries. The G-77 is opposed to its members assuming their own commitments towards limiting emissions when it is industrialised nations that are responsible for global warming.

The industrialised world, meanwhile, is split into three overriding currents: the European Union (EU) proposes that the North commit itself to cutting emissions 15 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2010, Japan suggests a five percent reduction below those levels, and the United States wants merely to stabilise emissions at 1990 levels by that time.

Washington is also pressing for developing countries to assume commitments to limit emissions, especially the emerging powers of the South: China, India and Brazil.

That proposal is flatly rejected by the G-77, as are other propositions by the administration of Bill Clinton, as a neoliberal, global trade in emissions regulated by the stock market.

The G-77 suggests that emissions be reduced 35 percent below 1990 levels, a target that the Venezuelan delegates said was a negotiating card, rather than a realistic and feasible objective.

OPEC, now that it has taken on the G-77 mantle of consensus, feels it is no longer “the villain” of global warming, and that the divisiveness of the North gives it maneuvering room that it would not have if the industrialised nations reached an accord.

“But that does not mean we are not concerned about the climate and that we refuse to adopt measures to avoid a climatic disaster,” said the Venezuelan source. What the delegates do believe is that “it is not up to us to shoulder the burden of correcting a problem that we haven’t caused,” and that alternatives other than a major reduction of consumption of crude oil should be explored.

A study released late last month by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which links the world’s 13 top oil consumers, indicates that no OPEC member figures among the leading emitters of greenhouse gases, although another exporter from the South does – Mexico, which ranks 14 on the list.

OPEC’s position, the delegates explained, is that control measures should encompass not only carbon dioxide but other gases as well. The group, which covers 40 percent of global demand for crude oil, also suggests the planting of forests, the natural absorbers of greenhouse gases, especially in the industrialised North.

In addition, it suggests strict controls on coal, the fuel which has the biggest impact on the environment. OPEC wants the industrialised nations to stop subsidising their own fossil fuel producers, as the Europeans do with coal, and the United States and Canada with petroleum.

A fourth OPEC proposal is for the creation of “mechanisms of compensation” for cases of extraordinary damage to Southern exporters of energy, something to which the industrialised world is opposed as a bloc.

The organisation also urges, in a collective position in which Venezuela has taken the lead followed by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait, investment in clean technologies and increased efficiency to avoid wasting energy in inefficient productive processes.

OPEC calculates that stabilising emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2010 would hurt the economies of its members, almost all of which are dependent on oil production. A reduction in emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels in the next 15 or 20 years would mean “an enormous shift in consumption trends and the collapse of oil prices,” which would put OPEC members in “an extremely delicate position,” the delegate pointed out.