Europe, United States strike deal on future climate talks
BUENOS AIRES (AFP)
A deal struck by the European Union and the United States on future talks on reducing greenhouse gases saved a 12-day UN climate change conference at the 11th hour.
The two sides had been at loggerheads for days on convening “seminars” next year to discuss what must be done once the Kyoto Protocol on climate change expires.
The EU wanted several informal meetings on strengthening the international fight against climate change that would include the United States.
Washington insisted on a single meeting at which participants would only exchange information on the environmental policies of different countries.
The compromise struck Friday calls for a single meeting, in May next year, as the United States had wanted.
But, in keeping with European wishes, the meeting will last several days, and the future of climate change negotiations will be up for discussion.
Most high-level delegates had already flown home as the haggling dragged on Friday, and it appeared for several hours that the conference might end with no agreement at all.
Describing the talks earlier in the day, French Environment Minister Serge Lepeltier said he preferred no agreement to a bad one.
“The situation is tense… but our position is we should not be systematically drawn into a bad agreement,” Lepeltier said. “We don’t want a deal at any price.”
Because it did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the United States will only be observer at the next round of talks on ways to counter global warming.
The Europe Union believes that any post-Kyoto accord would have no meaning without the United States, which is the source of 23 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases.
To ensure the United States is involved in the talks, Argentina proposed “a seminar of experts” – which Washington agreed to attend as long as there was no talk of the future.
“We don’t see seminars as discussions on post-Kyoto arrangements,” said Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, the US representative at the conference.
Official talks on measures to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which goes into effect in February and runs until 2012, are to start in November next year.
Kyoto commits industrialised countries who signed the protocol to trimming output of six “greenhouse” gases, especially carbon dioxide, by at least 5.2 percent by 2012, compared with 1990 levels.
But scientists say that reductions of around 60 percent are urgently needed to avoid wreaking potentially catastrophic damage to the environment.
US environmentalists were furious with Washington’s stance Friday.
“In the last three years, they have done it behind the scene. Now they are doing it in the open. Their intent is to wreck” the Kyoto Protocol, said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace.
“Shocking things have occurred,” echoed Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund. “The Bush administration made it very clear that they are not willing under any circumstances to talk about the future.”
According to a draft text of the deal reached late Friday, the seminar set for May will “promote an informal exchange of information” on actions related to cutting harmful emissions and adapting to climate change.
The goal will be to assist countries to “continue to develop effective and appropriate responses to climate change,” the text said.
Participants will also discuss “policies and measures adopted by their respective governments” to meet their obligations under UN climate treaties.
Saudi Arabia’s representatives were holding out on formal adoption of the compromise.
The Saudis regularly block climate negotiations, demanding compensation for the progressive disappearance of their oil riches and the effort by industrialized countries to reduce dependence on oil, a key source of carbon dioxide.
