ENVIRONMENT: Crucial Climate Meet to ‘Dot the I’s and Cross the T’s’

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 26 2001 (IPS) - Representatives of 175 countries will meet Oct 29 through Nov 9 in Morocco for a task that looks technical to the layperson, but is crucial for getting countries to meet their 2002 targets for reducing emissions of the gases responsible for global warming.

The aim of the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP7) in Marrakesh is to translate the political agreements reached at COP6, in the German city of Bonn, into technical rules.

The most pressing issues are monitoring and verification of greenhouse gas emissions, implementation of “clean development mechanisms” through which industrialised countries will be able to compensate for failure to meet targets by investing in abatement efforts in poor countries, and penalties for noncompliance.

“We have to find a balance, because there is a tendency to draft international treaties on the environment that are so ambitious and perfect that no country wants to ratify them,” Raúl Estrada Oyuela, the head of the Argentine delegation to the conference, told IPS.

Global warming is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels like petroleum by-products, coal and natural gas. When they accumulate, the gases trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect.

Global warming leads to a rise in infectious diseases like malaria and dengue, the extinction of species of flora and fauna, scarcity of food, heatwaves, drought, flooding and hurricanes.

Since 1995, countries have been negotiating a reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, which is responsible for more than 70 percent of global warming.

Industrialised countries release the greatest amounts of greenhouse gases, which means they must comply with stricter targets.

But the United States, which accounts for 25 percent of all emissions, has been reluctant to comply. On the other hand, Canada, Japan and the countries of the European Union are more willing to negotiate.

In the Kyoto Protocol signed at the COP3 held in that Japanese city in 1997, industrialised countries agreed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of five percent on 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

COP7 must “translate the Bonn implementation agreements into legal documents” and rules, Juan Carlos Villalonga, the head of the energy campaign in Greenpeace Argentina, told IPS.

That would mean the launch of the clean development mechanisms in 2002, and the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by industrialised countries “in order for it go into effect next year,” added Villalonga.

The clean development mechanisms outlined in the Kyoto Protocol would allow industrialised countries to invest in re-forestation efforts and renewable sources of energy in the developing world, to compensate for their failure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The implementation of the mechanisms – scheduled for early next year, a deadline that must be approved in Marrakesh – would serve as an attraction for industrialised countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the only way it could enter into effect in September 2002, said the activist.

So far, only a handful of countries has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, none of which are among the ranks of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. In order to go into effect, the treaty must be ratified by 55 percent of countries, representing at least 55 percent of global emissions.

“I believe industrialised nations will be more keen on participating if they see the clean development mechanisms functioning, which would strengthen the accords, and would in turn draw the United States back into the negotiations,” said Villalonga.

The United States is one of the parties to the Climate Change Convention. However, President George W. Bush’s refusal to submit the Kyoto Protocol to Congress for ratification this year, on the argument that it would hurt the US economy and exempt developing nations from cutting their emissions, has jeopardised climate change negotiations.

Estrada Oyuela explained that the participants in COP7 “will have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of the technical agreements, and break political deadlocks, in order to get the protocol accepted by the countries that must curb emissions.”

The conference must decide whether each country will be allowed to use its own method for measuring emissions, or whether all countries must use the same monitoring technique. Participants will also discuss who should sit on the committees that will establish monitoring and verification rules.

The clean development mechanisms will bring fewer surprises. It has already been agreed that the projects that will qualify as compensation for emissions are those involving re-forestation, rather than investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, as environmentalists were demanding.

Nevertheless, Villalonga underlined that it was important to define what would happen with re-forestation efforts that qualified for emissions trading if the forests were later burned down, for example.

There have also been clashes between countries that want to set up advisory committees on facilitating compliance, and countries that want stricter enforcement through binding penalties that would apply to those who violated agreements.

“The draft is somewhat vague on that point,” Leopoldo Sahores, one of the Argentine negotiators, admitted to IPS.

In Estrada’s view, sanctions should be light to keep countries from refusing to sign the treaty. Villalonga, meanwhile, stressed that the states of the European Union, as well as influential environmental organisations, were demanding strict sanctions.