Climate talks deadlocked, race to find
compromise
NETHERLANDS: November 20, 2000
THE HAGUE - With the clock ticking for an
international agreement to slow global warming,
the
world's richest nations remained sharply divided
on
Friday over how best to cut gases seen
drastically
changing the world's climate.
"It looks on a knife edge," said Michael Grubb,
Professor of
Climate Change and Energy Policy at London's
Imperial
College, at a key U.N.-spondored meeting in The
Hague on
climate change.
The two-week talks reach their mid-point this
weekend with
experts hoping the arrival of ministers can give
a political
push to halting efforts to tackle the threat of a
warmer
Earth.
"There's still a long way to go on the core issue
of cutting
back greenhouse gas emissions at home," Grubb
said of
sharp policy differences between the United
States and
European Union.
"That has been an issue for the three years since
Kyoto
and with one week to go in the final conference
it's still not
settled. It'll probably have to be dealt with by
the ministers
in the final hours."
Negotiators have been trying all week to strike a
deal on
how to implement a U.N. pact signed in Kyoto,
Japan in
1997 to cut emissions of gases believed to cause
global
warming, but Europe and the United States
remained at
loggerheads over the basic approach.
Scientists say that without cuts in emissions of
gases like
carbon dioxide from burning oil and coal there
could be
unprecedented climate change with possibly
devastating
effects.
U.N. climate reports issued in the 1990s left no
doubt that
global warming carries a real threat of increased
disease,
crop failures and rises in sea levels that need
urgent
attention.
The 15-nation EUwants countries to meet most of
their
emissions targets, set at Kyoto, by cutting
pollution from
their industrial, energy and transport sectors.
The US and its allies, including Japan,
Australia, Canada
and New Zealand, favour unlimited use of
so-called
"flexibility mechanisms" to meet their targets.
EMISSIONS CREDITS
These include buying the right to pollute -
emissions credits
- from other countries that can meet their
targets.
This ideological rift erupted on Thursday when
the EU
rejected a US-backed plan to designate its own
forests and
farmland as "sinks" to soak up carbon dioxide
(CO2), the
principal global warming gas, and enable
Washington to
meet its own targets for cuts in emissions.
The EU said the plan was a free gift that did not
"ensure the
environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol".
With little progress emerging, French President
Jacques
Chirac announced in Paris he would attend the
Hague talks
on Monday to add his weight to the push for a
workable
deal.
Earlier this month, Chirac urged the Hague
meeting in
advance to "take its responsibility" in battling
climate
change.
French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet
noted late
on Thursday that there was some movement from the
US
and Japan towards a possible compromise.
Envoys had just hours left on Friday to cut
through the
technical details and reveal just where that
compromise
may lie.
Environmentalists hope an accord can start to
reverse
pollution trends which scientists warn could have
disastrous
consequences for mankind and wildlife.
Negotiators still have to tackle the contentious
issue of
whether richer countries should be allowed to pay
poorer
ones to use their forests as CO2 "sinks".
Many senior US Senators have vowed to kill any
greenhouse gas plan they believe would hurt the
economy.
BRITAIN TO UNVEIL ACTION PLAN
Britain, claiming a lead position among the
industrialised
nations to turn its Kyoto pledges into actions,
was due to
unveil its strategy to combat global warming as
Environment Minister Michael Meacher headed for
the
Hague talks.
"We are setting out a plan to reduce (UK)
greenhouse gas
emissions by 23 percent below 1990 levels, that
is more
than 10 percent beyond our Kyoto targets,"
Meacher told
BBC radio.
Charles Secrett, director of the environmentalist
group
Friends of the Earth, welcomed the British
intervention:
"The publication of the government's climate
strategy will
hopefully send a powerful message to the climate
negotiations at The Hague and provide a blueprint
for other
nations to follow," he said.
Those who hoped the Hague talks could rekindle
the
flagging nuclear industry - which does not
produce CO2 -
were dealt a blow by European Environment
Commissioner
Margot Wallstrom who dismissed nuclear power as a
non-viable solution.
"We have to look at sustainable solutions, and if
we create
a huge waste problem, that is not sustainable,"
she said,
adding it was too costly for poor nations.
Story by Robin Pomeroy
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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