Brussels, 24/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - Even if all recognise its modesty, the dreamed of agreement in Bonn over the methods for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.8) provoked relief and unanimous praise from the partisans in the fight against climatic change. Though the first to savour this victory also call for vigilance over what remains to be done.
For Nicole Fontaine, European Parliament President this compromise is clearly less than the position expressed by the Parliament, but it permits to free the situation. She hoped that it shall be ratified at the best by the end of the year (…) for the Protocol to be able to enter into force. Feeling that the denunciation of the Protocol by the United States constitutes an extremely negative signal for the rest of the world and that by maintaining a hard line, the United States have made the planet pay dear the price of a certain form of national egotism, Nicole Fontaine calls on all the parties to now return to work to overcome the Bonn compromise and hope with regards to this that the issue of the legal sanction mechanism to be established for the States that do not fulfil their obligations be included in the agenda of the Marrakech conference next October (COP7).
In a communiqué, Robin Cook, President of the European Socialist parties congratulated the negotiators for their perseverance. In his eyes, the Europeans Union proved that it is a force for progress. We must now work towards obtaining not only a reduction of the effect of climatic change, but also to contain this phenomenon. This international agreement must act as a voice for those who, in the United States, pressure their administration to find the means to implement the principals of Kyoto.
On behalf of the Greens in the Parliament, Alexander de Roo, qualified the compromise as a "first small step" in the fight against the climate. According to him, the strong desire of the European Union and the G77 countries (developing countries) to find a compromise saved the Protocol, at the price of hard earned concessions; however the more important aim is achieved: the Protocol is read for ratification. Overly generous judgement, the authorised use of carbon sinks, he nevertheless welcomes that a limit has been set on the use of this mechanism. On the other hand, he deplores the fact that Japan, Russia, Australia and Canada have prevented the establishment of a sufficiently strict control mechanism for the respecting of the targets. Underlining the isolation of the United States, the MEP adds that all the Americans favour - market driven mechanisms, the promotion of clean technologies and the involvement of developing countries through the clean development mechanism - are found in the Bonn compromise.
Greenpeace welcomed the fact that the international community has finally crossed the second stage in the fight against the global warming of the planet. The NGO also invites all the countries to immediately do what is necessary to urgently ratify the Protocol. It calls in particular on Japan to honour the Protocol and to undertake to ratify it immediately, without awaiting the United States. Though there are major difficulties with many points of the agreement, Greenpeace considers it crucial for the Protocol to enter into force as soon as possible, and at the latest during the world summit on sustainable development (Johannesburg, September 2002).
According to Greenpeace, it is for the European Union and the developing countries that comes the merit for having saved the negotiations from the destructive attempts by Japan, Canada and Australia, which, nevertheless, managed to weaken a great amount of the agreement. While deploring that this covers a watered-down version of the Protocol concluded in 1997, Greenpeace feels that the hard battle by OPEC, the fossil fuel industry and the United States to have this fail bears witness, if there was a need, to this instrument's value. All the more so that nuclear energy is not in the Kyoto Protocol. It will not be subsidies in the framework of the clean development mechanism or the joint implementation (ED: two of the flexible mechanisms in the Protocol respectively allow for the obtaining by industrialised countries, of emission credits in exchange for investments into clean technologies in the LDC or in other industrialised countries). The attempts by the nuclear energy industry to exploit climatic change imploded, rejoices Bill hare, policy director for climatic issues. Greenpeace nevertheless assures of its determination to fight to prevent countries from abusing the numerous loopholes made available to them, such as "hot air" from Russia and the Ukraine (two countries that have already undertaken the reductions required for them for 2008-2012, due to the economic crisis and the restructuring of the Soviet Union), instead of taking steps of a national scale that are required to achieve an effective reduction of their emissions.