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Pressure
Mounts for U.S. to Join Kyoto Treaty |
Posted:
12.03.07
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Policymakers, scientists and activists are on the island of Bali,
Indonesia, this week to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol,
the United Nations treaty on climate change.
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The two weeks of talks come amid increasingly dire warnings
about the warming of the planet.
In mid-November, the Nobel Prize-winning scientists on the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating
that greenhouse gas emissions must begin to decline by 2015 and
be cut at least in half by 2050 to avert global disasters like
drought, rising seas and mass extinctions of species.
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Australia
signs on |
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 Against
this backdrop, the Bali conference's aim is to begin negotiations
for an emissions-reduction treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol,
which will expire in 2012.
The protocol, which 175 nations agreed to in 1997, requires 36
industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.
Until this week, the United States and Australia were the only
two developed countries not signed on to the accord. They argue
that the rigorous goals outlined in the Kyoto accord would unfairly
harm their economies, while not addressing the rising emissions
of rapidly developing countries like China and India.
But Australia changed that Monday when the new prime minister,
Kevin Rudd, immediately signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
ending his country's decade of opposition.
"This is the first official act of the new Australian government,
demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change,"
Rudd said in a statement.
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Complicated
negotiations |
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 The
U.N. hopes the Bali talks are open enough to bring in both the
United States and developing countries -- which are not required
to make any emissions cuts under Kyoto. The goal is to complete
the negotiations by 2009 and give countries time to ratify and
implement the treaty by 2012.
Some U.N. leaders say public opinion has changed since 1997.
"There is an unprecedented awareness among the public and
leaders now. This augurs some seriousness towards the discussions
that take place and the negotiation of post-2012 commitments,"
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, told reporters.
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President
Bush's perspective |
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 In
recent days, the administration has reiterated its position that
it doesn't plan to make any commitments to specific emissions
reductions in Bali.
In a statement released last week, President Bush said, "Our
guiding principle is clear: we must lead the world to produce
fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that
does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering
greater prosperity for their people."
Paula Dobriansky, the under secretary of state for democracy
and global affairs representing the United States in Bali, said
that any new agreement should involve all the world's major economies.
"We feel very strongly about having a global framework here,"
she said. "In order to have a global framework there has
to be an effort here to determine how one can engage all the players.
In order to do that there has to be some flexibility in this,"
she said.
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Carbon emissions
markets |
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 One
focus of the negotiations is expected to be "cap and trade"
schemes, in which power plants and other carbon intensive factories
can "buy" pollution credits that allow them to pollute
while they try to figure out how to lower their emissions. Trading
in the permits hit $30 billion last year, according to the World
Bank.
The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (or EU ETS), the largest
greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world, was created
to meet the goals set out for European nations in the Kyoto Protocol.
Countries such as Indonesia, the summit's host, want to add credits
from "avoided deforestation" to the new rules.
Currently, carbon offsets are only available for tree-planting,
not preservation.
Destruction of Indonesian tropical forests to clear land for
money-making plantation crops such as palm oil releases so many
tons of carbon into the atmosphere that Indonesia ranks in third
behind the U.S. and China as the top emitters of greenhouse gases,
according to the World Bank.
However, some diplomats worry that expanding the cap and trade
markets too much could make them less effective at curbing the
consumption of fossil fuels.
The cap-and-trade system was "a brilliant idea," said
Michael Zammit Cutajar, a Maltese diplomat who helped create the
carbon market. But, he told the Wall Street Journal, market forces
have found ways to buy credits the easiest way, which gives polluters
an "out" from reducing emissions.
--Compiled
by Leah Clapman for NewsHour Extra
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