Brussels, 12/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - To the delight of the European Union, the conditions are now in place for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change to be ratified and come into force. The Protocol obliges 38 industrial countries to cut their total greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% between 2008 and 2012 on the 1990 level. Ministers from 167 countries have been meeting in Marrakesh for two weeks (COP 7: 29 October - 9 November) to negotiate the operational rules for the Protocol, and scraped together an agreement at daybreak on Saturday that turns the Bonn agreement into a legally binding text. Russia and Japan are two vital partners following the US withdrawal from the negotiations since the Protocol has to be ratified by 55 Parties representing 55% of industrialised countries' greenhouse gas emissions and they agreed to the compromise that includes decision on the compliance system, the Protocol's flexible mechanisms (the transfer of credits from carbon sinks) and details of how the international emissions trading system (carbon trading) will operate - it can start in 2008 between "big" polluters and countries that pollute less. At Marrakesh, the European negotiators acted as catalysts (as they had done at the Bonn negotiations) and welcomed the outcome as a major success story, even though the reduction in gas emissions is very small compared with the amount by which emissions will have to be cut in order to seriously tackle global warming.
Olivier Deleuze, Belgian Sustainable Development Minister and head of the EU delegation declared: "The Kyoto Protocol is saved. We have been able to remove initial reluctance by certain countries to recognise and preserve the Bonn agreement. We can now go back to citizens and tell them that, finally, action can start on the ground to put an end to the dramatic consequences of climate change, which are threatening the whole planet. The success at the Conference in Marrakech demonstrates that, despite the tragic events of 11 September, the international community is able to produce positive responses to global challenges. It provides evidence of the confidence of citizens and political leaders in the capacity of all countries to continue to work together to build a more sustainable future". He saw Marrakesh as a vital step since the Kyoto process was now unstoppable.
Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström states: "This is a milestone in the global fight against climate change. I am please to say that the long and bumpy road from Buenos Aires, via The Hague and Bonn, led to a success in Marrakech, despite the loss of a very important passenger on the way. We have now concluded four years of tough negotiations since the Kyoto Protocol came into existence in 1997… We need to travel at high speed. This is what people expect. Like the EU, all other Parities should now take steps to bring the Protocol into force by the World Summit for Sustainable Development in September 2002".
At a press conference when he returned from Marrakesh, Jos Delbeke, Commission expert and member of the EU delegation, said that the task had been particularly difficult since the negotiations covered a multitude of technical details and as we know, the devils in the details. He described the essential aspects of the agreement: 1) the most rigorous and innovative compliance system ever implemented by a multilateral environmental agreement setting annual emission criteria for industrial countries and monitoring of the targets by a facilitating branch that would encourage countries to meet their obligations; and the publication by 2007 of a progress report on compliance drawn up by international experts. The system is not legally binding in the first commitment period, but abiding by the rules is an eligibility criterion for being able to use flexible mechanisms. At the first meeting of the Parties (in 2003) after the Protocol comes into force negotiations would be launched to make the system binding. The wording is flexible enough to meet Japan's requirements - not giving carte blanche for sanctions following external monitoring, the mechanics of which has not yet been decided upon; 2) how the flexible mechanisms will be implemented: to allow the start of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for transferring clean technology to developing countries; banning the transfer of sinks credits from the first period (2008-2012) to the second (only jointly implemented credits obtained via CDMs can be transferred); allowing the renegotiation of carbon sinks quotas for the second period; and doubling Russia's carbon sink quota (in terms of the quota it was allocated in Bonn: viz. 33 million tonnes a year rather than the 17 million laid down in Bonn).