ENVIRONMENT: U.N. Climate Negotiations Back on Track

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Oct 29 2002 (IPS) - Concerted efforts by the European Union, China and the Group of 77 bloc of developing countries appear to be getting the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol back into the ‘Delhi Declaration’, expected to be issued at the close of a 10-day U. N. conference on climate change here on Friday.

”The negotiations are going better and we are convinced that we will find a good result,” Thomas Becker, who represents the EU at the eighth Conference of the Parties (COP-8) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at a press briefing Tuesday.

Becker’s optimism contrasted with the EU’s disappointment on Monday, when it was discovered that the first draft for the Delhi Declaration did not even mention the Kyoto Protocol, which the EU ardently supported through several rounds of negotiations.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is a multilateral environmental agreement on curbing climate change that recognised ecological constraints to consumption, contains a binding compliance regime and requires action against global warming based on common but differentiated responsibilities.

Its implementation received a massive setback last year after the United States refused to ratify it on the grounds that its emission reduction targets were too hard and would serious damage its industrial growth.

The United States has since been busy promoting alternative bilateral arrangements.

The chief climate change negotiator for the United States, Harlan Watson, and his team are on the executive board of the conference as observers, but have been accused of obstructing progress on implementing the Kyoto Protocol.

”The EU has no power to decide who will be or will not be on the executive board, but we are clear that observers should not be allowed to obstruct proceedings,” Becker said.

The daily EU briefings have become the main window into the tortuous negotiations, which are being conducted behind closed doors. ”The EU has an attitude of transparency and openness – we never advocate closed-door meetings except when it helps the negotiations,” Becker said.

Becker said the EU continued to harbour the ”naive hope” that the ‘Annex 1’ or industrially developed countries would ratify the Kyoto Protocol and would meantime honour its own commitments to it, including funding.

During COP-6 at Bonn in July 2001, the EU, together with Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland had announced that they were ready to contribute 410 million dollars toward climate change funding annually by 2005.

Becker said the EU and a number of other countries have worked for a high replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), recording a 2.92 billion dollars by August this year. On top of that, EU countries have announced additional voluntary contributions to enable GEF replenishment to reach its original objective of three billion dollars.

”We are the most positive when it comes to funding not only climate change but also overseas development assistance,” he said. ”We are doing our share and waiting eagerly for others to do theirs.”

Earlier, developing countries led by G-77 and China demanded that the draft of the Delhi Declaration be changed to urge ”ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by all parties that have not done so”.

They called for specific mention of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as the worst sufferers of climate change.

In response to demands that developing countries should also make commitments on the reduction of greenhouse gases, the G-77 said all parties should be treated according to their ”respective capabilities”.

The main G-77 concerns were transfer of sound technologies, faster mobilisation of financial resources and assured funding for the implementation of adaptation projects.

”We are trying to reach a meeting point within the G-77 which is divided over the demand that developing countries also make commitments on cutting emissions,” said Fabio Feldman, representative from Brazil which has been playing a key role in building consensus within the grouping. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has demanded adequate steps for adaptation to ”adverse impacts of response measures”, since the introduction of cleaner technologies, including those steering away from fossil fuel, would push down demand for oil and natural gas.

Becker said it while it was ”annoying” that some ”oil barons” were working towards ”no results” at COP-8, some of the OPEC countries had genuine problems since their economies were dependent on single commodity – petroleum.

But then, experts said, the signs of climate change are already being seen around the world today.

Losses owing to natural disasters linked to climate change have reached one trillion dollars over the last 15 years and annual losses in the next 10 years could reach 150 billion U.S. dollars, said Andrew Dlugolecki, a member of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) delegation, at a briefing here.

Monsoon failure in Asia, forest fires in the United States, unprecedented droughts and flood in several parts of the world were already a reality and directly attributable to human-induced weather change and pose serious threats to the future, he said.

”The increasing frequency of severe climatic events, threatening social stability, has the potential to stress insurers, reinsurers and banks to the point of impaired viability or even insolvency,” Dlugolecki said.

R J Pachauri, an Indian environmentalist who heads the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said India and South Asia had a particular vulnerability to climate change and that already monsoon patterns, crucial to agriculture in the region, were being affected by it.

”There is a need to identify and promote drought-resistant varieties of crops in dry zones and undertake changes in cropping patterns,” he said.