Brussels, 20/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 16 and 17 May this year in Bonn, where the seat of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change secretariat is located, a first informal UN meeting (entitled “Bonn Seminar”) was held on combating climate change as reaching the deadline for the Kyoto Protocol has not allowed the 150 participant countries to set themselves ambitious goals for the post-Kyoto period. The meeting also confirmed the reticence expressed by the United States regarding any multilateral agreement and that of India about any commitment to control green house gas emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol, which took effect mid-February and which imposes green house gas reductions on the industrial countries by 2012 (targeting only 33% of global emissions), provides for negotiations to be launched this year with a view to the new post-2012 agreement. Although the governmental experts of several countries, including the United States, are “determined” to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol, most delegations nonetheless refrained from stating what the future should hold reserving their stances for the ministerial climate conference in Montreal this December. “Climate protection must not come to an end in 2012. Companies and investors want to know what will happen after that date”, the German environment minister, Jürgen Trittin, said as he opened the seminar. Only South Africa, Mexico, Norway and Tuvalu showed their determination for the Montreal Conference to adopt a negotiating brief and thus sketch out the broad outlines of a future agreement. Jointly chairing the meeting, Masaki Konishi of Japan and Chow Kok Kee of Malaysia nonetheless welcomed the “very frank and productive exchange of views” and expressed the hope that the “good atmosphere” of the Bonn Seminar would have a positive influence on negotiations in Canada in December.
The EU presented policies that it has already set in motion and its positions on the scientific, economic and technological aspects of the dossier without ever mentioning the future directly in order to “avoid provoking the United States and the large emergent countries without which the necessary emission reductions would never be reached”, a head of the EU delegation explained, cited by Le Monde. The United States has recognised the need to take short term measures while stressing its concern to maintain economic growth as it allows global living standards to be improved. It also recalled that Washington has decided to devote $5.2 billion this year to the fight against climate change, especially through short and long-term clean energy programmes with which it plans to settle the greenhouse emission problem. The US delegation took stock of the state of current international cooperation on a series of initiatives launched by Washington: Generation IV (fourth generation of nuclear fission reactors), Methane to Markets Partnership (intended to avoid methane emissions from coal mines and the hydrocarbons sector), Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (harnessing and sequestration of CO2), International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (hydrogen economy and zero emission electricity production), and the Global Earth Observation System (observation of the Earth's environment, weather, agriculture and natural disasters), as well as bilateral and regional agreements on science and climatic technology. The United States, however, refused to set targets for the post-2012 period. Stressing the differences of opinions between the countries, the main US negotiator on the environment present in Bonn, Harlan Watson, expressed pessimism about there being an agreement likely to extend the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012. It is difficult to imagine that emissions will not continue to increase, he explained, with reference to the economic and demographic growth of the United States.
Australia, which has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, was open to long-term solutions concerning climate change and hoped there would be further progress, not only in reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also in adjusting to the consequences of global warming. Thanks to the policies that it has implemented, it considers it is on the right road toward reducing its greenhouse gas emissions at the level agreed in Kyoto. The large emergent countries - India, Indonesia, Brazil and China - said they did not intend to join in the collective effort, at least not for the time being. “We hope the developed countries will respect their commitments. The way they do so, or do not do so, will have an influence on our future actions”, Gao Feng, Head of the Chinese Delegation, said. China recalled, moreover, that it will have enormous energy needs in the next 30 years, inevitably entailing a rise in its CO2 emissions. It also said the transfer of clean technologies by the industrial countries was the key to controlling emissions. Brazil was adamant about the need for post-2012 measures and for extension of the Kyoto mechanism to facilitate clean investment in the South. Alluding to several signatories of the Kyoto protocol - including Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, New Zealand and Canada - which have emission rates higher than the US and violate the international agreements, India was critical of the rich countries which continue to increase their emissions instead of reducing them and violate their commitments regarding financial aid and the transfer of clean technology to the South. It thus rejects all future commitment on control of emissions that would hamper its development.
White House official meets three European Commissioners
It is worth pointing out that, on Wednesday, the White House official for environmental issues, James L. Connaughton, met three European Commissioners Stavros Dimas (environment), Andris Piebalgs (energy) and Jacques Barrot (transport) to discuss environmental issues and the fight against climate change as a prelude to the next meeting of the G8 and the next EU/US summit. Speaking before the press on the sidelines of these meetings, and recalling the promising results of Mr Dimas' trip to Washington in April on EU/US cooperation for climate change (EUROPE 8933), Mr Connaughton mainly said that the “range of measures, the intensity of policy measures and the diversity of policy measures between the EU and the US on the issues of sustainable development and climate changes have 80-90% more in common than they do in difference. So that's a very strong platform for collaboration and action as we go forward”.