Industrial nations agree step to new climate pact

[struggle4progress]

Source: Reuters

Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:27 PM EDT135
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

... About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 U.N. talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations' work on a new pact to extend the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 ...

It fell short of calls by the European Union and developing nations for the range to be called a stronger "guide" for future work. Pacific Island states said that even stiffer cuts may be needed to avert rising seas that could wash them off the map ...

The U.N.'s climate panel said in a study in May 2007 that rich nations would have to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent to help avert the worst impacts of climate change from droughts, storms, heatwaves and rising seas ...

The United States has not ratified Kyoto, rating it too costly and unfair for excluding 2012 goals for developing states, and thus was not involved in Friday's session. President George W. Bush has separately called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on September 27-28 to work out future cuts.

Read more: http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-08-31T202715Z_01_L30699785_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-CLIMATE-COL.XML

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Updated: New York, Sep 01 04:30
London, Sep 01 09:30
Tokyo, Sep 01 17:30

Developed Countries Should Cut Emissions 40% by 2020 (Update1)
By Mathew Carr

... Nations that set targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol could accept stricter goals after 2012 if they use emissions trading more, a document distributed today at the UN meeting said ...

Under emissions trading, developed countries can cut emissions to meet targets or invest in projects that prevent greenhouse-gas output in poorer nations such as China and India. About 900 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries were in Vienna for the talks ...

Formal negotiations are scheduled to begin in December in Bali, Indonesia, on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Kyoto accord requires 5 percent cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels. The treaty doesn't assign targets to developing nations such as China and India ...

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation European Union, wants developed countries to cut their greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels and to half of 1990 levels by 2050.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=az.1NOPjvd7A&refer=home

UN climate talks in Vienna end with broad pledges, wobbly language

VIENNA (AFP) — ... "The road to Bali is clear but it's time to switch gears," another Greenpeace participant, Red Constantino, also told journalists, adding that talks could not continue at the same slow pace as they have until now.

Pat Finnegan of the Irish non-governmental organisation GRIAN meanwhile told AFP that the final report was a "convoluted document" that was "nothing like strong or adequate enough" and spoke of "fudge" in the language.

NGOs also criticised moves by certain governments to block any agreement on Friday.

"Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Switzerland... were the countries hindering progress in Vienna," the WWF said ...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNHHF4MAmo2gUtJ6KyhfEWAbSM0w

U.N. Climate Talks End in Cloud of Discord
Industrialized, Developing Nations Still at Odds Over How and When to Cut Emissions

By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 1, 2007; Page A20

... Some industrialized countries balked at adopting language in the conference's final statement that would have set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. They agreed in the end that this target would be a nonbinding starting point for future discussion.

Illustrating the range of opinion, the Group of 77 -- a bloc of developing nations -- said that industrialized countries should target an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Japan on Friday that an equitable solution would base cuts on emissions per person and bring industrialized countries into line with developing ones.

A U.N. study found that it would cost at least $200 billion a year in additional funding to reduce the expected growth in emissions of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere and to return them to their current levels in 2030. By contrast, the U.S. government currently devotes about $6 billion a year to climate change programs ...

Some environmental activists in Vienna questioned the motives and sincerity of Bush's initiative, saying they feared that it could evolve into an alternative to the U.N. and post-Kyoto process that would let big polluting countries evade the more stringent and obligatory gas reductions likely to be mandated by the world body ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/31/AR2007083102052.html