Brussels, 13/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - Responsible for the hesitation of Australia and Japan towards the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the denunciation of this international treaty by the United Sates contributed towards the politicisation of the debate over climatic change to the point of eclipsing the technical aspects. Though it is these technical questions, left pending at the conference in The Hague (COP6, November 2000), which will have to be negotiated by experts from around the world, as on Monday in Bonn. On the eve of the continuation of international negotiations (COP6 b, 16-17 July), Jos Delbek, Head of the Unit responsible for Climatic Change at the European Commission, recalled before the press the arguments in favour of an agreement in Bonn allowing for the rapid ratification of the Protocol, without the United States if necessary, and the Union's position over the options to be negotiated. See Below:
Ratification: The Kyoto Protocol is the only international agreement, which would permit to begin, at the global level, the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Casting doubt over such an agreement, whose initial aims are modest (a 5.2% reduction of emissions from the industrialised countries around 2008-2012 compared to the level achieved in 1990) reducing to nothing the ten years of work aiming to establish a sufficiently flexible structure to progressively attack a phenomenon, which the scientific community recognises the seriousness. The defection of the United States (36.1% of the emission in 1990, against 17.4% for Russia, 8.55% for Japan and 24.2% for the European Union) makes necessary the support from nearly all the industrialised countries to assemble the conditions for the ratification of the Protocol (55 countries total at least 55% of the total emissions). Resolute towards ratifying the Protocol in 2002, the Union is prepared to show flexibility, but only over the method for the implementation of the Protocol (see EUROPE of 13 July, p.15). Two groups of documents are on the table: the text from The Hague, very voluminous and riddled with passages between brackets, and the text negotiated and consolidated by Jan Pronk, President of the COP6, which constitutes, according to the Union, even if it does not include all the compromises, an excellent foundation for the COP6b negotiation.
Options: - system for respecting targets: the EU feels that a sufficiently strict and credible system, capable of dissuading countries from exceeding their reduction targets, constitutes a vital element of any agreement; - financial assistance to the developing countries: the EU is prepared to study a package of financing and consider that the proposal to pay USD 1 billion per year to the fund for adapting (for the ecosystems and the most vulnerable people in the less developed countries) is a good start. It insists for the contributions to be based on the polluter-pays principal. Doubting that it would be opportune for the countries going through transition to contribute as much as the other industrialised countries, it is nevertheless open to discussion; - clean development mechanisms: the EU feels that it must enter into force as quickly as possible to stimulate exports of clean technologies and energy savings in the LDC; - carbon wells: the EU continues to have reservations concerning the taking into account of the reforestation activities and especially their inclusion in the clean development mechanism, but it is prepared to discuss, feeling that this point could be deepened for the second engagement period (after 2012); - trading in emission rights: the EU feels that this form a good way of reducing the costs and will do what it can to provide itself with such a system by 2005.
According to the Union, the costs for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would not exceed 0.6% of GDP in 2012, also it does not see why it would be too heavy for the Americans if Europe felt them to be bearable. The Americans are too pessimist, they underestimate the investment potential in clean technologies, stated Mr Delbek.
In a Communiqué, Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament, earnestly invited the industrialised countries to ratify the Protocol as quickly as possible, and before the end of the year, considering it crucial for the future of the next generations to reduce in a radical fashion greenhouse gases. She does not despair - despite the serious set back due to the American government - to see the United States return to their initial undertakings, but, she underlined in the face of their procrastination, it is all the more vital that the other industrialised countries mobilise, as they are those mainly responsible for greenhouse gases.