ENVIRONMENT: Climatic Conditions Prove Poor for U.S.

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Dec 12 2003 (IPS) - Environment groups were celebrating the failure of the United States Friday to block the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The U.S. made several attempts behind the scenes at the ninth conference in Milan of the parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to derail the agreement, environmentalists say. But other nations attending the meeting reaffirmed their commitment to the treaty.

With Russia now expected by many to sign up, the Kyoto Protocol could finally reach the target of ratification by countries producing 55 percent of the emissions or more.

The 55 percent target is intended to ensure that nobody is bound by the protocol until a lot of others, including enough big industrialised countries have accepted it.

The protocol will take effect once the target is crossed, and bind signatories into cutting emissions under an agreed programme.

“The United States had been trying in the background to persuade others that the Kyoto Protocol will not be effective,” Roger Higman from Friends of the Earth International told IPS on phone from Milan. “But 120 countries have now ratified the protocol.”

The United States has ratified the UN Convention on Climate Change, but not accepted the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for cutting down emissions by 2013. Further agreements are expected after 2013.

The environment group WWF said proposals by the Bush administration for more research and investment in new technologies were a mandate to keep polluters in business.

“They are not only woolly, economically unviable and unscientific but the U.S. has no proof that they would deliver any carbon dioxide reductions at all,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF climate change programme.

“This meeting strongly reaffirmed that the only international approach to tackling global warming is the Kyoto Protocol.”

Alexey Kokorin, head of WWF-Russia’s climate change protocol said “all we need is for Russia to put the key in the door.” Approval by Russia is now essential to reach the magic figure of 55 percent after the United States walked out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

Kokorin said the “the latest word from Moscow is that the Russian ratification process is still under consideration and is most likely to happen some time after the presidential elections in March 2004.”

But Russian delegation chief Alexander Bedritsky gave nothing away. “It’s vital, we think, to continue negotiations to try to find solutions that are more acceptable to countries that have accepted to cut their greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

WWF welcomed pledges in Milan by Germany, the Philippines, Britain and others to keep average global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. “If temperatures rise above this threshold, the world will suffer from increased flooding, droughts and glacial meltdown,” WWF said.

About 2,500 delegates and 2,400 observers attended the meeting in Milan. The meeting was called to agree rules under which the Kyoto Protocol would operate.

“It was called also to agree rules under which tree-planting projects will become available for credit under the Kyoto Protocol,” Higman said. Tree- planting is a vital instrument under the protocol to counter harmful emissions from industries that are believed to cause damaging climate change.

But this is an area where environmentalists did not get all they wanted.

“We wanted to exclude genetically modified (GM) crops and invasive species,” Higman said. Countries did not agree to ban GM organisms or invasive species being funded through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Protocol.

The mechanism is intended to promote plantations.

“Friends of the Earth International therefore calls on Northern (industrialised) countries to focus on curbing greenhouse gas emissions at home and on promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency,” the group said in a statement Friday.

WWF also raised concerns that the rules agreed at the meeting do not address potential use of large-scale commercial plantations, GMOs and invasive species. But it welcomed some of the projects under the CDM.