TOKYO, July 31, Kyodo - Environment
Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tuesday that Japan will
make efforts to prepare for ratification of the Kyoto
Protocol on curbing global warming to bring it into
force in the target year 2002, following a political
accord on the pact's operational rules struck in U.N.
climate talks last week.
Kawaguchi told a press
conference it is necessary for the country to speedily
implement domestic measures to ensure ratification of
the accord next year. ''The sooner, the better,'' she
said of such efforts, noting that the ratification process
at the Diet would take time.
The minister said
the two-week U.N. climate conference in Bonn that concluded
Friday ''increased opportunities for entry into force
of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 as an agreement was made
at a political level on basic issues.''
The Bonn
conference, formally known as the sixth session of Conference
of Parties (COP6) to the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change, managed to strike a deal on core elements
of rules to implement the Kyoto pact but failed to put
the agreement into a legal form needed for ratification.
Kawaguchi said it is difficult for Japan at present
to ratify the protocol as the country needs further
agreement on operational rules of the pact to do so.
She also expressed the intention to aim for an accord
on outstanding issues at the next session of the climate
talks, or COP7, scheduled to start in late October in
Morocco.
The Kyoto Protocol, concluded in Japan's
ancient capital in 1997, requires industrialized countries
to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by an average
5.2% from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
Japan
holds the key to bringing the pact into force since
the United States, the world's largest carbon dioxide
(CO2) emitter, withdrew from it in March.
The protocol
will come into force after ratification by 55 countries
representing 55% of the industrialized countries' CO2
emissions in 1990.
2001 Kyodo News (c) Established
1945.
All Rights Reserved
LA Times
Bush
Aide Backs Off on Timetable for Climate Plan
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON
-- National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, batting
down expectations raised by Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell, said Sunday that the Bush administration
has not set a deadline for completing its policy for
combating global warming.
Ten days ago in Europe,
Powell assured foreign nations that the United States
would have a plan developed in time for an October global
warming conference in Marrakech, Morocco.
"I
don't think we want to set a deadline of a specific
meeting," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"But there's no doubt that the United States is
working very hard on this problem." The contradiction
highlights emerging division within the White House
about how to counter the international Kyoto, Japan,
accord regulating global warming, which President Bush
has refused to sign.
Richard Haass, director of
policy planning for the State Department, explained
that formulating a policy has been difficult because
"differences have been so pronounced" within
the administration.
"The people around the
table . . . don't agree," Haass said Friday at
the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank.
Despite
the divergence of views, Haass said he hoped that "sooner
rather than later" a decision would be made by
the administration, which appears to be under increasing
pressure from Congress, foreign nations and the public
to do so.
In Bonn on July 23, the United States
sat on the sidelines while 178 countries agreed on rules
for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which set a goal
of cutting emissions of heat-trapping "greenhouse
gases" by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by
2012.
The Bonn agreement specifies emission reductions
for each participating nation, but the overall goal
will be much more difficult without the participation
of the United States, the world's biggest generator
of such gases.
The administration has been roundly
criticized by allies around the world and by many congressional
leaders at home for rejecting the international accord
without offering an alternative. Rice's statement follows
a similar suggestion by Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Christie Whitman to the Washington Post
that the U.S. plans to continue to do its "own
thing."
Although Bush has stressed that he
considers the problem of global warming to be very important,
he has so far offered only to study the issue and develop
technologies to cut greenhouse gases here and in developing
countries.
A Cabinet-level group has been busy since
spring trying to assess the challenge and formulate
an effective response.
At least before they joined
the administration, some Cabinet members, including
Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, favored
aggressively regulating emissions of carbon dioxide,
which are considered the major man-made contribution
to global climate change.
But others in the administration
put a priority on increasing production of energy from
fossil fuels, including coal. This contingent seemed
to have won out when Bush in March reversed a campaign
promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power
plants.
A number of proposals to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions have at least some bipartisan support in Congress,
and the Senate seems especially geared to move forward.
Even Republicans are sending very public messages to
the administration.
"The fact of the matter
is, we need to deal with the carbon issue, substantively
or politically," Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio)
told Whitman during a hearing Thursday. "I would
suggest that somebody really start brainstorming on
it."
Rice's comments do not represent the first
time that Powell's assertions concerning global warming
policy have been overtaken. Earlier this year, Powell
asked the head of the international Kyoto process to
postpone the Bonn meeting for two months so that the
United States could develop an alternative policy. The
meeting was delayed, but the Bush team came to Bonn
empty- handed.
Powell said the delay was because
global warming "is a terribly complex issue, and
we are putting our best minds to work on it. We want
to come up with something that will garner support and
will be seen as a very clear response to this problem,
which exists and which we all know exists, called global
warming."
He stressed that the United States
would produce a plan, "but we really are now looking
toward [Morocco] for the tabling of specific proposals
that could be seen as an alternative to the provisions
of the Kyoto Protocol."
Environmentalists were
disappointed Sunday to hear Rice step back from Powell's
commitment.
"It suggests that the administration
continues to waffle on global warming policy,"
said Lloyd Ritter of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"If the administration were truly serious about
the problem, [it] would commit to meaningful alternative
policies."
Rice defended the administration's
decision to break from international treaties on arms
control as well as on environmental protection.
"This is going to be an engaged internationalist
administration, but it will not be an administration
that signs on to treaties that are not in America's
interest," Rice said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
She elaborated on CNN, saying that the United States
would move forward in the coming months concerning domestic
climate change policy and has been developing partnerships
with other nations. But it will not sacrifice its economy
to join in the Kyoto agreement, she said.
"It's
not a matter of going it alone. It is that the United
States is a unique country in terms of our energy usage,
our size, the proportion of the world's [gross domestic
product] for which we account--25% of the world's GDP.
So we do need a national plan that unites our energy,
economic and environmental policies, and that's what
the administration is trying to do."
*
Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus contributed to
this story.
------------------------------------
Climate conference ends with fine-tuning
GERMANY: July 30, 2001
BONN, Germany - Delegates
from about 180 countries came close but failed to complete
modifications to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming
last week as a historic two-week meeting ended.
Jan Pronk, Dutch environment minister and chairman of
the conference convened in Bonn by the United Nations,
had wanted all remaining technical issues sealed so
governments would have a full text for speedy ratification
by their parliaments.
But time ran out on the negotiators
working on the fine tuning that lasted until Last week
evening. The officials were already weary from all-night
last-minute bargaining that saved the 1997 Kyoto pact
on greenhouse gas reduction on Monday.
Officials
said, as expected, loose ends would be left for the
next round of annual U.N. climate meetings in Marrakesh,
Morocco, in late October, before the treaty would be
ready for ratification by individual nations.
"We
closed the conference with the political package agreed
on Monday and adopted as the 'Bonn Agreement' on Wednesday,"
said Michael Zammit Cutajar, executive secretary of
the U.N. conference held in Bonn.
"The essential
political choices have been made in Bonn," he told
Reuters after the talks wound up shortly after 10 p.m.
(2000 GMT). He said final texts in about five areas,
including carbon sinks, compliance and mechanisms, were
not quite completed and would be worked on at the meeting
in October in Morocco.
"We need only another
day or two," he said. "We just need a little
more time to translate the agreement into a legal text."
He said the final texts had been completed in about
10 areas.
Participants said strong supporters of
Kyoto had hoped to complete the protocol early to improve
chances that enough big industrial countries would ratify
the treaty for it to take effect next year.
Environmental
lobbyists said they feared attempts to delay the negotiations
by nations less interested in cutting greenhouse gas
emissions.
Earlier last week, as the summit drew
to a close, German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin
lauded its success.
"The Bonn conference was
a breakthrough in saving the Kyoto protocol. For the
first time countries have committed themselves to a
reduction in greenhouse gases," he told a news
conference in Berlin. "Now the way is clear for
ratification."
Countries accounting for 55
percent of the 30-odd wealthy industrial nations' carbon
dioxide emissions must ratify the treaty for it to take
effect, forcing them to meet targets for cutting the
emissions blamed for global warming.
Since the United
States, which accounts for about a third of that output,
has already rejected the deal, virtually all the big
polluters, notably European Union states, Russia, Japan
and Canada, must ratify the protocol for it to take
effect.
All have said they are aiming to ratify
next year. Trittin said the accord should come into
force before a global summit on sustainability in South
Africa in September 2002.
Trittin said he was sure
Washington would change its mind on the treaty as it
came to appreciate the economic benefits of investing
in energy-efficient technology and renewable power.
"In the long term I am convinced that for the USA
the advantages of the Kyoto protocol outweigh the disadvantages."
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------
Pronk
forecasts U.S. to return to Kyoto Protocol
BONN, July 28, Kyodo - The head of a U.N. conference
on climate change said Friday he feels certain the United
States will rejoin negotiations in the future on the
Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming.
Speaking
at a news conference following the closing of the two-week
conference in Bonn, Jan Pronk said it is important to
keep considering the U.S.'s return to the negotiating
table.
During the conference -- known formally
as the sixth session of the Conference of Parties (COP6)
to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change --
negotiators managed to strike a political deal to salvage
the Kyoto accord, which had been on the rocks following
the U.S. pullout in March.
Pronk, who is also the
Dutch environment minister, said major U.S. newspapers
and lawmakers who had been critical of the protocol
are now gradually leaning in favor of it.
Pronk
also said a working-level meeting for the conference
will be held in Marrakech, Morocco, in September.
He said he will make vigorous efforts, in cooperation
with his successor, Muhammad El-Yazghi, Moroccan environment
minister, to continuously hold preparatory meetings
prior to the seventh session of the climate conference,
scheduled from Oct. 29.
Pronk will step down from
his post on the first day of the conference in Morocco.
An accord was reached Monday in Bonn on core elements
of the rules to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which
requires industrialized nations to cut their emissions
of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by an average 5.2%
from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
Signatory
parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol hope to get the controversial
climate pact into force by 2002.
To meet the deadline,
as envisaged by drafters of the Kyoto accord, negotiators
must sort out their differences in the next round of
U.N. climate conference.
2001 Kyodo News
(c) Established 1945.
All Rights Reserved
------------------------------------
Japan
Times - EDITORIAL
Friday, July 27, 2001
Japan
took more than it gave on Kyoto
By MICK
CORLISS
Staff writer
After nearly four drawn
out days of intense talks in Bonn, 178 signatories to
the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change forged
an accord on operating rules for the Kyoto Protocol.
Although eight months tardy, the agreement -- which
originally was to have been cemented at climate talks
in The Hague in November -- increases the chances the
protocol will be put into force on schedule by 2002.
Signatories have agreed upon a framework for trimming
greenhouse gases. Knowing how much, by when and by what
means greenhouse gases should be trimmed may pave the
way for the development of greenhouse gas reduction
plans in each country, ratification of the document
and, ultimately, implementation of the protocol.
Although negotiations were a niggling game of give and
take, the outcome indicates Japan did more taking.
Ostensibly spurred by Washington's opposition to the
climate pact, the European Union and other countries
appeared more flexible and eager to entice Japan and
other fence-straddling states to join the pact.
Under the compromise, Japan will be allowed to reduce
up to 13 million tons of carbon through use of sinks
and carbon absorbing ecosystems, namely forests. This
translates to 3.86 percent of 1990 levels, or more than
half of Japan's pledged 6 percent emissions cut.
Japan also won out on another sticking point: Countries
that fail to meet reduction commitments will, for now,
receive warnings -- not penalties.
While the Japanese
government should be commended for moving on climate
change independently of the United States and helping
rescue the Kyoto Protocol, it deserves criticism for
using its position -- without its swing vote the protocol
was effectively dead -- to what may be interpreted as
excessive advantage.
Indeed, domestic and international
nongovernment organizations view Japan's position as
selfish and have voiced concern that the compromises
Japan has extracted from other countries may mar the
integrity of the protocol and efforts to slow global
warming.
The devil of the protocol is still in the
details, which remain to be sorted out at COP7 in Morocco
in late October. It is incumbent upon treaty signatories
to see that what they are developing in good faith helps
reduce greenhouse gases.
Nearly four years have
passed since the protocol was adopted at COP3, the third
Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention
on Climate Change, in Kyoto. Industrialized countries
committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2
percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
Two things are certain following COP6. One is that governments
have boosted the momentum for addressing climate change.
U.S. President George W. Bush's removal of America from
the Kyoto framework negotiations in late March -- because
of expected negative effects on the U.S. economy and
the lack of legally binding provisions for greenhouse
gas cuts by developing countries -- cast a shadow over
the future of the protocol.
Now, it is important
for countries, especially Japan, to keep firm, friendly
pressure on Bush to return to the fold. Participation
by the U.S. -- the undisputed king of greenhouse gases,
producing almost a quarter of global emissions -- will
be crucial to reining in climatic change.
A second
certainty following the COP6 agreement is that Japan
and other countries will be able to embark on drawing
up detailed domestic plans and legislation for ratification
of the protocol.
Both the Upper and the Lower Houses
have passed resolutions supporting the protocol and
for good reason. A government report released in March
found that the effects of global warming are starting
to become visible in Japan. Earlier this month the government
said the gases are beginning to affect plants and animals,
and that greenhouse gases emissions as of 1999 jumped
6.8 percent above 1990 levels.
The Environment Ministry,
which is working on a domestic reduction regime, recently
announced in an interim report that greenhouse gas cuts
of up to 7 percent from 1990 levels are possible through
the introduction of more efficient technologies.
It also cited the merits of a policy mix, including
a carbon tax that would funnel revenue into climate
change mitigation projects.
The 5.2 percent reduction
among industrialized countries called for under the
protocol is only a fraction of what experts say is needed.
According to some estimates, cuts of 60 to 70 percent
from current emission levels are required to stabilize
the climate.
The accord in Bonn was a tiny, but
critical, first step.
The Japan Times: July 27,
2001
(C) All rights reservedSaturday July 28, 12:40
AM
------------------------------------
Bonn
saves Kyoto climate treaty but efficacy of accord unsure
BONN, July 27 (AFP) -
A conference of 181
states this week agreed mechanisms aimed at reducing
greenhouse gas emissions -- above all of carbon dioxide
-- blamed for global warming, but the efficacy of the
hard-won Bonn accord is uncertain.
Reached in marathon
round-the-clock negotiating sessions among environment
ministers, the Bonn accord saved the Kyoto Protocol
from collapse after a shock move by the United States
in March to turn its back on the treaty.
The 1997
Kyoto Protocol, built upon the 1992 Rio de Janeiro framework
climate convention, aims to reduce the greenhouse gas
emissions of 39 industrialised countries by 5.2 percent
by 2008-2012 compared with 1990 levels.
Non-governmental
organisations say concessions made in Bonn to certain
countries such as Japan and Canada have in effect already
considerably compromised these targets.
The Bonn
conference defined the modalities of application of
Kyoto, necessary before countries can ratify the protocol
and allow it to go into force. But it also postponed
until after ratification an article of provisions to
ensure respect for the measures.
Summing up the
conference which closed late Friday, the head of the
German delegation, Karsten Sach, declined to hazard
an opinion on the chances that an amendment would later
be adopted covering emission quotas and punitive measures
for countries which fail to respect them.
Another
European diplomat said that adoption of the amendment,
subject to difficult conditions such as the prior ratification
of the treaty and then a majority vote, was "uncertain".
If the control system is finally established, "the
Kyoto Protocol will be the most far-reaching environmental
treaty ever, otherwise it will not go much further than
the framework convention," the diplomat said.
The Bonn accord was possible because the United States
did not attempt to block the negotiations or prevent
other countries from moving ahead towards ratification,
while reaffirming its own rejection of the protocol.
But the European Union had to give much ground to keep
Canada and Australia, and above all Russia and Japan,
on board after the US walked out on the treaty.
It conceded much greater consideration for forest and
croplands as "carbon sinks" -- because they
absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis -- in calculating
how much of the gas countries may emit, mainly through
industrial processes or from road vehicles.
The
developing countries of the G77 group have for their
part been accorded three funds to help finance their
adaptation to climate change and cleaner energy use.
After the resounding failure in The Hague last November
to put flesh on the Kyoto Protocol, the Bonn accord
was hailed Friday by the environmental campaign organisation
Greenpeace as "an historic landmark in the battle
to protect the earth's climate".
"We've
won a major tactical victory here, and the big losers
are the oil, coal, gas and nuclear industries, and George
W. Bush," said Greenpeace International's climate
policy director, Bill Hare.
But the road to ratification
and implementation is strewn with obstacles.
Even
before the formal adoption of the accord Wednesday,
Russia tried in vain to obtain a further "sink"
concession. It then sought Friday to introduce a clause
which would have made its "sinks" allowance
subject to review following new statistical evidence.
Australia for its part tried to soften the text regarding
the verification of countries' commitments.
The
battle is expected to continue at the next international
climate conference, to be held in the Moroccan city
of Marrakesh in late October or early November.
------------------------------------
U.N.
climate meeting closes without accord on text
BONN, July 27, Kyodo - The U.N. climate conference
closed Friday after a tumultuous two-week session where
negotiators managed to strike a political deal to salvage
the Kyoto accord to prevent global warming but in the
end failed to put the agreement into legal form needed
for ratification.
Signatory parties to the 1997
Kyoto Protocol hope to get the controversial climate
pact, which has been renounced by the United States,
into force by 2002.
To meet the deadline, as envisaged
by drafters of the Kyoto accord, negotiators must sort
out their differences in the next round of U.N. climate
conference, scheduled to be held in Morocco in late
October.
Speaking at a plenary session Friday night,
Jan Pronk, president of the U.N. climate conference
-- known formally as the sixth session of the Conference
of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change -- proposed wrapping up the legal text when the
signatory countries gather in Morocco.
Earlier
Friday, negotiators raced against the clock but failed
to thrash out the loosely worded political agreement
struck Monday by government ministers on rules to implement
the Kyoto pact, which requires industrial countries
to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases under a set
of binding targets.
One sticking point concerns
the interpretation of compliance rules when a signatory
state fails to achieve the emissions target for carbon
dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for changing
the global climate pattern.
The conference, in
session since July 16, ran out of time with negotiators
still stuck in their dispute whether the compliance
rule has compulsory force.
Japanese government
sources said Japan and Canada interpret the compliance
system as not having binding power, while the European
Union is insisting on making it compulsory.
Meanwhile,
Russia objected to the cap on the amount of carbon dioxide
to be soaked up by forests and wants a revision, the
sources said.
Nevertheless, Pronk, who is also
the Dutch environmental minister, has called the Bonn
meeting a success, noting that the core agreement sealed
Monday paved the way to put the Kyoto treaty into force
next year.
EU member countries have pledged to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol next year. The Japanese government
has also signaled Tokyo may ratify the pact even if
the United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse
gases, does not change its mind and rejoin the treaty.
The Kyoto Protocol, concluded under U.N. auspices
in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, requires industrialized
nations to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by
an average 5.2% from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
The protocol will come into force after ratification
by 55 countries representing 55% of the industrialized
countries' carbon dioxide emissions in 1990.
The
seventh session of Conference of Parties (COP7) to the
U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is scheduled
to open Oct. 29 in Marrakech, Morocco.
2001 Kyodo
News (c) Established 1945.
All Rights Reserved
-----------------------------------
Chicago
Tribune
Poor
nations get aid on global warming
Items compiled
from Tribune news services
Published July 28,
2001
NAIROBI, KENYA -- Industrialized nations have
set up several multimillion-dollar funds to help the
world's poorest countries use cleaner energy sources
and combat the effects of global warming, a UN official
said Friday.
Klaus Toepfer, executive director of
the UN Environment Program, said $420 million has been
pledged by European Union countries, Switzerland and
Canada following the latest round of climate talks this
month in Germany.
At the Bonn talks, 180 countries
reached agreement on the Kyoto Protocol, which aims
to cut emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, blamed
for warming the Earth's atmosphere. The United States,
the world's biggest producer of harmful emissions, is
not a party to the agreement.
Under the agreement,
industrialized nations, which produce 90 percent of
the world's greenhouse gases, will be able to offset
some of their emissions by paying for projects in developing
countries that prevent the spread of carbon dioxide.
Copyright © 2001, Chicago
-----------------------------------
Bipartisan
Senate plan seeks reduced carbon emissions
USA: July 27, 2001
WASHINGTON - A pair of U.S. senators
yesterday introduced legislation intended to "jump
start" the nation's ability to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions, the greenhouse gases blamed most for warming
the globe.
Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican
Sam Brownback of Kansas said their legislation would
redirect American attention to reducing greenhouse gases
by promoting carbon sequestration, the process of absorbing
carbon dioxide through forest and agriculture-based
efforts.
The world came to agreement earlier this
week in Bonn, Germany, to finalize the Kyoto climate
change treaty, a pact rejected in March by the Bush
administration as unworkable.
Brownback and Wyden
said they want farmers and others to help focus on cutting
dangerous emissions, and let the country make progress
on battling climate change without Kyoto, at least at
this time.
"The time is right for us to pursue
the first steps toward dealing with the climate change
issue in a positive and proactive way," said Brownback.
The bill provides assistance to owners of non-industrial
forest land to plant and manage underproducing or understocked
forests. Farmers would also be allowed to voluntarily
contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to
sequester carbon through soil conservation measures.
Sequestration occurs when carbon from the atmosphere
is naturally stored in plants, soil or water.
Kyoto
seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by industrialized
countries by 2012, but the United States is not currently
part of the process.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
-----------------------------------
New York Times
JUL
27, 2001
Lawmakers
Begin Effort to Get U.S. to Fight Global Warming
By DOUGLAS JEHL
ASHINGTON, July 26 — With the
United States now alone in the world in opposing the
treaty to combat global warming, some lawmakers are
pressing for Congress to take the lead toward reducing
emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, the issue on
which the Bush administration has so far kept to the
sidelines.
Both Democratic and Republican Congressional
aides say it is now likely that Congress will pass one
or more measures this year calling for cuts in emissions
of carbon dioxide, a main provision of the Kyoto global-
warming treaty. But it is less clear whether majorities
would back the mandatory restrictions spelled out in
the treaty and rejected by the administration, or whether
they would favor a voluntary approach.
Still, when
Christie Whitman, administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, arrived on Capitol Hill this morning,
she heard calls for Congress to make up for the administration's
inaction this week in Bonn, where the United States
opted out of an agreement on the Kyoto treaty that was
backed by more than 180 countries.
"The administration
can refuse to commit the United States to the Kyoto
accord; that is their choice," Senator James M.
Jeffords of Vermont told Mrs. Whitman at a hearing on
power plant emissions that was his debut as chairman
of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
a job he won in May by shifting his party affiliation
to independent from Republican.
"But this Congress,
this Senate, and especially this committee will not
let our international partners down," Mr. Jeffords
said. "We plan to take steps to reduce our nation's
contribution to this growing problem by working with
industry to reduce carbon emissions."
The
White House has criticized the Kyoto treaty as "fatally
flawed," saying its provisions are unfair to the
United States. This morning, Mrs. Whitman defended the
administration's go-slow approach in offering any alternative
to the treaty, saying it would be premature to present
any plan for carbon dioxide reductions until further
studies are completed.
"We're still a long
way from knowing how to solve the problem," she
said.
Emissions of carbon dioxide are widely regarded
as the main contributor to global warming, and the United
States is the world's largest source of that gas, about
one-third of which comes from old coal-burning power
plants.
The Bush administration's refusal to adopt
mandatory limits on carbon dioxide has put it at odds
not only with Europe and Japan, but also with senators
like Mr. Jeffords, who has introduced a bill requiring
power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The
bill is also sponsored by 2 Republican senators from
Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, and 12 Democrats.
Other measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are
also floating around Congress, including some, like
one that Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska,
is expected to introduce next week, that would stop
short of mandatory restrictions in favor of voluntary
measures.
Even as the administration scrambles to
come up with its own stand on the issue, the Congressional
aides and several senators said, the pressures of public
opinion and concern over international fallout appear
to have added to a view that Congress would be irresponsible
to do nothing.
"Very few of us up here want
to have America seen as not participating in something
that's important," Mr. Hagel said in a telephone
interview. He said that what happened in Bonn had redoubled
a sense of broad support for doing something.
Senator
Jeff Bingaman, the New Mexico Democrat who is chairman
of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
said, "I certainly feel that leadership's got to
come from somewhere. It's not coming from the administration."
"And I think it would be a failure for us,"
Mr. Bingaman said, "to just sit by idly and let
the rest of the world work on this problem while our
scientists tell us that the problem is very real."
Today's hearings on the subject were the first since
the breakup of the Bonn meetings, and a sense of frustration
over the administration not offering an alternative
was evident even among Republicans who have been supportive
of the White House position. Their comments may have
reflected recent opinion polls showing that increasing
numbers of Americans see the problem as serious.
In the months before the Kyoto treaty was framed in
1997, the Senate voted 95 to 0 for a resolution opposing
any treaty that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions
unless developing countries were also made subject to
the rules that would bind industrialized countries like
the United States.
The Bush administration has
often pointed to that vote as an indication that a treaty
requiring mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide emissions
could never win Senate ratification. But supporters
of mandatory measures point out that the mounting evidence
of the scope and potential severity of climate change
problems that has emerged in the last four years has
significantly altered both the political and the scientific
debates.
Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican
of Ohio, told Mrs. Whitman, "The fact of the matter
is that we need to deal with the carbon issue, substantively
and politically."
In a telephone interview,
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and a
leading critic of the administration's policy, was more
explicit, saying: "What happened in Bonn has reinvigorated
the notion that the United States is in a very unfortunate
position, which encourages many here to think that we've
got to take some steps to respond domestically, to put
the United States in better graces."
President
Bush has said that his administration takes the problem
of climate change seriously and is determined to address
it. But he has criticized the Kyoto treaty because it
does not require immediate action from developing countries
and because, he has argued, the steep cuts it would
require in carbon dioxide emissions would exact a heavy
cost to the American economy.
The administration
has said little about its plans since last month when
Mr. Bush promised more money for research into causes
and possible solutions to global warming.
Administration
officials now say that the White House hopes to come
up with an alternative to the Kyoto plan in time for
the next meeting of the Kyoto group, in October.
Today's hearing focused on emissions from power plants.
Mr. Jeffords, whose bill would rein in power- plant
emissions of four problem- causing gases said it was
wisest to address all four of the gases at once.
But Mrs. Whitman, advocating the administration's three-pollutant
approach, said it would be more prudent to move now
to tighten restrictions on three undisputed public health
problems — nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury
— while deferring action on carbon dioxide until
its role in global warming was better understood.
"It would be a shame to deny people an important
public health goal while we await consensus on carbon
dioxide emissions," she said.
Copyright 2001
The New York Times Company |
-----------------------------------
New
York Times
JUL 24, 2001
178
Nations Reach Climate Accord; U.S. Only Looks On
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
ONN, July 23 — With the
Bush administration on the sidelines, the world's leading
countries hammered out a compromise agreement today
finishing a treaty that for the first time would formally
require industrialized countries to cut emissions of
gases linked to global warming.
The agreement, which
was announced here today after three days of marathon
bargaining, rescued the Kyoto Protocol, the preliminary
accord framed in Japan in 1997, that was the first step
toward requiring cuts in such gases. That agreement
has been repudiated by President Bush, who has called
it "fatally flawed," saying it places too
much of the cleanup burden on industrial countries and
would be too costly to the American economy.
Today,
his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said
in Rome, where the president met with the pope, "I
don't believe that it is a surprise to anyone that the
United States believes that this particular protocol
is not in its interests, nor do we believe that it really
addresses the problem of global climate change."
She reiterated that the president had created a task
force to come up with alternatives.
The agreement
by 178 countries was largely the product of give and
take involving Japan, Australia, Canada and the European
Union. But Japan's role was crucial because it is the
largest economy after the United States and its opposition
would have killed any agreement.
Largely as a result
of concessions to Japan, the product is a significantly
softened version of the Kyoto accord, allowing industrial
nations with the greatest emissions of greenhouse gases,
principally carbon dioxide, to achieve their cuts with
greater flexibility. For example, Japan won a provision
to receive credits for reducing the gases by protecting
forests that absorb carbon dioxide.
Still, the agreement
is a binding contract among nations — excluding
the United States — under which 38 industrialized
countries must reduce those emissions by 2012 or face
tougher emissions goals. Those countries now account
for close to half of the emissions. The agreement now
moves to a complex ratification process that calls for
approval from the biggest polluting countries, which
can be achieved even with United States opposition.
Officials from the European Union exulted over the compromise.
Olivier Deleuze, the energy and sustainability secretary
of Belgium, said there were easily 10 things in the
final texts that he could criticize. "But,"
he said, "I prefer an imperfect agreement that
is living than a perfect agreement that doesn't exist."
The Kyoto accord calls for the 38 industrialized countries
by 2012 to reduce their combined annual gas emissions
to 5.2 percent below levels measured in 1990. It set
a different, negotiated target for each, with Japan,
for example, accepting a target of cutting gas emissions
back to 6 percent below 1990 emissions. Those targets
were included in the Kyoto agreement and were untouched
by the compromise today. Developing countries do not
have to do anything to reduce emissions.
The biggest
sticking point was how much to penalize countries that
miss their targets. Japan held out for a fairly painless
system. Europe wanted countries that missed targets
in the first commitment period, from 2008 to 2012, to
pledge to reduce more carbon dioxide in the next period,
with the equivalent of penalties plus interest.
On that point, Europe got its way.
The talks also
clarified the design of the first global system for
buying and selling credits earned by reducing carbon
dioxide emissions. Such a system tends to focus investment
in pollution cleanups where the job can be done effectively
and cheaply.
In general, Japan was in the driver's
seat. After Mr. Bush rejected the treaty, Japan became
a pivotal player. It sought, and received, extra credits
toward its emissions goals for protecting its forests.
Forest experts calculated that the credits for forests
essentially would drop Japan's target from 6 percent
below 1990 levels to just 2 percent below. Canada and
Russia would gain large forest credits as well.
But climate scientists said that in most cases the forest
credits were not as big a gift as they seemed, and that
economic growth — if continued as projected —
would put all the industrialized countries listed under
the treaty 15 or 20 percent above their 1990 levels.
So a drop even close to 1990 figures would be a big
change, they said, essentially lessening the benefit
of the forest credits.
Still, some participants
grumbled about countries getting credit for gas reductions
"by watching trees grow," as one environmentalist
put it. The compromise was laced with of something for
just about everyone.
The European Union pledged
$410 million a year through the first years of the treaty
to help developing countries adapt to climate change
and build the technological ability to avoid adding
to the problem.
That was something demanded by,
among others, Saudi Arabia, among the group of developing
countries that are not required to reduce their emissions.
The difficulties in moving ahead on the Kyoto Protocol
far exceeded those surrounding other environmental treaties,
experts said, because the treaty, by controlling carbon
dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, would limit something
released by almost every act of daily living.
That
this was an economic as well as environmental treaty
was evident at every turn.
"This protocol is
about the climate, but it is also about the interests
of each country," explained Ali Al-Naimi, the Saudi
oil minister.
Indeed, he said, Saudi Arabia's interest
lay not so much in curtailing gases, but in preventing
economic disruption should the treaty lead the world
to curtail its use of oil.
Much of the momentum
appeared to be maintained personally by Jan Pronk, the
indefatigable Dutch environment minister and chairman
of the talks here. Mr. Pronk often locked himself in
a room with clusters of delegates. By dawn today, dozens
of delegates were sprawled asleep on every spare cushion
and couch in the meeting rooms of the Maritim Hotel.
In the end, the diverse array of countries at the
table, faced with the possibility of an embarrassing
collapse of the entire treaty, overcame their differences.
The compromise caps a six-year struggle between
a group of industries and countries that claimed mandatory
emissions caps would harm economies, and environmental
groups and other nations that saw such limits as the
only way to stave off potentially disruptive climate
shifts.
At the meeting, there were unusual combinations
of interests, with companies that build nuclear power
plants eager to jump into the climate fight because
nuclear power produces electricity without emitting
greenhouse gases. Japan, Canada, China and other countries
supported credits toward emission targets by substituting
nuclear power.
But the European Union, despite wide
use of nuclear power in some large European countries,
insisted there be no nuclear option in the agreement.
To some of the participants here, the achievement was
a bit hollow given that the United States, which by
some measurements accounts for about 25 percent of greenhouse
gases, chose not to participate.
Others noted that,
among them, the three dozen industrialized countries
that supported the treaty language accounted for far
more emissions than the United States.
Environmental
campaigners said Europe had proved it could lead despite
its sometimes fragmented appearance.
"There's
really a new force on the world stage," said Philip
Clapp, the president of the National Environmental Trust,
a lobbying group based in Washington. "If the United
States will not lead, Europe can and will."
Many of the negotiators from other countries held out
hope that, eventually, the United States would rejoin
the pact.
Chances of that happening in the short
run are slim. During the session celebrating the accord,
Paula Dobrianksy, the under secretary of state for global
affairs, congratulated the parties to the protocol but
reiterated a common theme of the Bush administration
— that it was "not sound policy." She
did not come to Bonn with any alternative ideas.
Japan's environment minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, in a
clear reference to the United States, said it was important
to try to build a bridge between the Kyoto process and
countries waiting on the sidelines.
"In order
to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol, we
need to have the widest possible participation of countries,"
Ms. Kawaguchi said. "We should try to encourage
all our friends to join us in our common effort to address
global warming."
Copyright 2001 The New York
Times Company |
-----------------------------------
Tanaka
hints at ratifying Kyoto climate pact without U.S.
HANOI, July 26, Kyodo - Japanese
Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka indicated Thursday that
Japan may decide to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed
at curbing global warming without U.S. participation,
a Japanese official said.
She made the comments
to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in a
meeting at the Vietnamese capital, saying Tokyo ''is
not necessarily following the opinion of the United
States,'' the official told reporters.
An accord
was reached Monday in Bonn on core elements of the rules
to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized
nations to cut their emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse
gases by an average 5.2% from 1990 levels between 2008
and 2012.
Washington announced in March it will
withdraw from the pact and although European states
insist on ratifying it without U.S. participation, Japan
has pushed for efforts to persuade the U.S. to rejoin.
Tanaka is on a five-day trip to Hanoi to attend
a series of high-powered meetings hosted by the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations. She will return home Friday.
2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
All Rights
Reserved
------------------------------------
U.S.
Not Seeking New Global Warming Talks
Bush Unlikely
to Offer Alternative to Pact of 178 Nations This Year,
Whitman Says
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post
Staff Writer
Friday, July 27, 2001; Page A15
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine
Todd Whitman said yesterday that the Bush administration
has little interest in attempting to reopen international
global warming talks any time soon and instead will
focus on hemispheric and domestic measures to curb greenhouse
gas emissions.
In the wake of an agreement by leading
U.S. allies in Bonn this week on the details of a global
warming treaty that the United States declined to support,
Whitman said President Bush is unlikely to offer a substantive
alternative when negotiators meet again late this year
in Morocco.
Instead, she said, the administration
will offer a detailed proposal later this year for reducing
emissions other than carbon dioxide from U.S. power
plants and factories, and will explore hemispheric plans
with Canada and Mexico for reducing the levels of greenhouse
gas emissions that scientists say contribute to the
Earth's rising temperature.
"Basically, we're
going to continue to do our own thing here," Whitman
said during a meeting with Washington Post editors and
reporters. Her comments contrasted with those of Secretary
of State Colin L. Powell, who said last week during
a Group of Eight foreign ministers meeting in Rome that
"we are looking toward [the Morocco meeting] for
the tabling of specific proposals that could be seen
as an alternative."
Whitman, a member of the
president's advisory team on energy and climate change
issues, added that she is skeptical that the Bonn agreement
would be effective. The agreement reached by 178 countries
calls for industrial nations to reduce their emissions,
on average, to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Whitman said Bush will continue to pursue an alternative
approach that stresses research, market-based solutions
and technology transfers to developing countries with
serious pollution problems.
During the interview,
Whitman reiterated the administration's commitment to
toughen the government standard for arsenic in drinking
water -- while acknowledging that it still may be weaker
than the one proposed by the Clinton administration
but shelved by the Bush administration.
Whitman,
54, assumed the EPA post this year with a mixed record
on environmental issues. As governor of New Jersey,
she ordered deep cuts in the state's environmental protection
department and favored voluntary industry compliance
over tough government enforcement of environmental regulations,
but she also cleaned up the beaches and significantly
expanded the state's holdings of open spaces.
She
got off to a rocky start in Washington when she declared
that the new administration was committed to reducing
carbon dioxide emissions and combating global warming.
She was undercut when Bush reneged on a campaign pledge
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and then disavowed
the global warming treaty that the United States negotiated
and signed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.
Whitman responded
by saying repeatedly that the president was entitled
to accept or ignore the advice of his Cabinet, just
as she had been when she was governor.
Yesterday,
she said that she is "primarily, mostly" in
agreement with the administration on environmental and
energy policy, adding, however, that "there are
some issues I would do things a little differently."
She added: "It's more style than substance."
Whitman said Bush was probably too abrupt in announcing
in March that he was disavowing the Kyoto accord, without
first conferring with European allies -- a view that
has been expressed by other high-level administration
officials.
Asked about speculation that she might
not complete her term as EPA administrator, Whitman
replied: "Oh, I have no plans. If he [Bush] wants
me out, I've always told him he has my [letter of] resignation.
Whenever he needs it, he just has to tell me. But, right
now, I plan to stay here for a while."
Earlier
yesterday, Whitman testified before the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee on proposals for reducing
power plant emissions, a major cause of global warming
and health problems.
Whitman said the administration
will introduce legislation for reducing three major
power plant pollutants -- nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide
and mercury. Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), chairman
of the committee, is promoting an alternative bill that
includes reductions in carbon dioxide emissions -- an
approach opposed by the administration, the coal and
utility industries and many lawmakers from the Midwest.
Whitman said she doesn't think it is politically practical
to impose restrictions on carbon dioxide and that if
Congress and the administration can agree to limit the
other three gases, "we will have done some extraordinary
things."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
-----------------------------------
Talks
on legal text of Kyoto pact rules face rough going
BONN, July 27, Kyodo - Working-level talks continued
Thursday to compile a legal text on core elements of
rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to curb
global warming, but agreement is proving hard to reach,
conference sources said.
The parties are wrangling
over the text, with different interpretations of the
agreement struck by environment ministers Monday and
officially adopted Wednesday at the sixth session of
the Conference of Parties (COP6) to the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change.
Compilation of the
legal text by Friday, the final day of talks, is believed
to be difficult and is expected to be carried over to
COP7, the next round of the conference slated to start
in Morocco in late October.
The accord on core
elements of the Kyoto pact operational rules concerns
four areas -- financial aid to developing countries,
emissions trading and other flexible mechanisms to help
countries achieve emission cuts, the use of forests
to absorb carbon dioxide, and a compliance system.
Japanese government sources said Japan and Canada interpret
the compliance system to achieve the reduction target
of carbon dioxide emissions as not having binding power,
while the European Union (EU) is insisting on a text
to make it compulsory.
Meanwhile, Russia is objecting
to the cap on its amount of carbon dioxide to be soaked
up by forests that can offset emissions, and is calling
for a revision, but other countries are opposing such
a revision, the sources said.
2001 Kyodo News (c)
Established 1945.
All Rights Reserved
------------------------------------
Asia Times, 26th July
After
the talk, time for action
WASHINGTON - Now
that 178 nations have agreed a deal that commits industrialized
nations to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, environmentalists
are determined to hold signatories to their word and
to lead the United States back into the climate change
fold.
Washington, which rejected the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol after President George W Bush scored it as
"fatally flawed", was sidelined during negotiations
in Bonn, Germany, that led on Monday to agreement on
the rules for implementing the pact.
"This
is not the end of a process, but rather the beginning
of the next campaign," says Nathalie Eddy, a climate
campaigner with Greenpeace International.
Alden
Meyer, director of government relations at the Union
of Concerned Scientists, says that in the United States
his group would now turn its attention to winning meaningful
domestic policies to attack the global warming threat.
Such policies, he says, include higher fuel efficiency
standards for cars and light trucks, binding limits
on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and requirements
that a steadily increasing share of US electricity come
from clean renewable energy sources such as wind and
solar energy.
After agreement was reached at the
ongoing climate talks in Bonn, Japan, Europe and Canada
indicated that they would seek ratification of the Kyoto
pact next year or sooner. At least 55 nations, including
countries that account for at least 55 percent of the
industrialized world's 1990 level of carbon dioxide
emissions, must ratify the agreement for it to be become
binding. Without US participation, ratification hinges
on Japan's support of the treaty.
The accord, named
after the Japanese city where it was drawn up, calls
for the 38 industrialized nations to reduce, by 2012,
their combined annual greenhouse gas emissions to an
average of 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels. Concessions
were made over the weekend that softened the original
1997 pact, making it favorable to Japan. Industrial
nations with the greatest emissions of greenhouse gases,
mainly carbon dioxide, are now allowed to achieve their
cuts with greater flexibility.
For example, forested
nations such as Canada, Russia and Japan won concessions
from the European Union to be able use their carbon-absorbing
forests to lower their emissions reduction targets.
According to some estimates, credits for forests would
drop Japan's emissions target to 2 percent below 1990
levels - without the offset, the figure would have been
6 percent.
A large sticking point during the negotiations
was how much to penalize countries that miss their targets.
Japan wanted a painless system, but Europe eventually
won out with its proposal that countries that miss their
targets by 2012 would have to reduce more carbon dioxide
than other nations in the ensuing years. For every ton
of gas that a country emits over its target, it will
be required to reduce an additional 1.3 tons during
the protocol's second commitment period, which starts
in 2013.
A special climate change fund and a fund
for least developed countries were also created under
the agreement. They are intended to help developing
countries adapt to climate change impacts, obtain clean
technologies, and limit their emissions.
The negotiations
also solidified the rules of the Clean Development Mechanism,
through which industrialized nations can receive credit
for investing in climate-friendly projects in developing
countries. The rules specify that energy efficiency,
renewable energy, and "forest sink" projects
can qualify for the mechanism. The talks also addressed
the international emissions trading regime which enables
developed countries to buy and sell emissions credits
among themselves.
While the deal is weaker than
environmentalists had hoped, many praised the protocol
as a positive step toward reducing emissions. Calling
the agreement a "geopolitical earthquake",
Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate change campaign
at the World Wildlife Fund, said, "In the battle
against global warming, this first small step is a giant
leap for humanity and for the future of our planet."
But according to calculations by Greenpeace, the
rules agreed at the Bonn talks are really "loopholes"
that will allow business to continue as usual. "Assuming
the United States comes on board, fossil fuel and greenhouse
gas emissions from developed countries will rise by
0.3 percent by 2010 from 1990 levels," says Malte
Meinshousen, a Greenpeace climate campaigner. If the
US - which produces about one-quarter of the world's
total emissions - is left out of the equation, the environmental
group estimates that emissions could rise by 2.5 percent
by 2010. The group pledged to press for much bigger
emissions cuts after the first reduction commitment
period ended in 2012.
Others groups argue that
even if Kyoto is a weak treaty, Monday's announcement
sends a strong signal to industry to begin investing
in measures that cut carbon dioxide pollution.
Meyer, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says
the newly established rules of the treaty may prompt
US companies to start pressuring the Bush administration
to join the protocol. US companies, he says, will not
long accept being left on the sidelines as their competitors
in Europe and Japan take advantage of the market opportunities
for clean technology exports created by the Kyoto Protocol.
"I am convinced that the United States will
eventually join the rest of the world in ratifying and
implementing the Kyoto treaty," says Meyer.
Technical experts are now spending this final week of
the Bonn climate summit translating the delegates' political
agreement into legal text.
(Inter Press Service)
---------------------------------------
UK
water industry says climate change threat urgent
UK: July 26, 2001
LONDON - Climate
change will hit water and wastewater services first
and most strongly, and preparations to combat the threat
must start now, Britain's water industry body Water
UK said yesterday.
"The water industry
is in the front line and is planning to ensure that
businesses and the quality of life will not suffer,"
said Pamela Taylor, Water UK chief executive, as government
leaders dispersed from their Bonn meeting on combating
global warming this week.
"We know what we
have to do, but it won't be possible unless there is
a full public debate about what is needed and who will
pay. In spite of all the noise and coverage of the Bonn
meeting, there is no sign of this beginning anytime
soon."
Water UK said manufacturing industry,
transport, agriculture, the utilities and others are
dependent on secure water supplies and a stable water
environment, but if the effects of higher temperatures,
more intense rainfall and rising sea levels go unchecked,
there would be massive disruption.
"Everyone
is worrying about how to prevent or reduce climate change.
That's understandable, but responsible businesses and
governments must now accept that the impacts may be
inevitable," she said ahead of a seminar on the
subject to be held in London on Thursday.
Water
UK represents Britain's privatised regional water companies
and has long argued that the regulatory regime that
caps prices charged to customers does not take into
account enough of the long term environmental costs
of maintaining and improving water and sewerage infrastructure.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------
Congress
Moves to Follow on Kyoto
Environment: Lawmakers
are caught off guard by other nations' decision to deal
with problem of global warming without U.S. help. Effort
to pass legislation to curb emissions is revived.
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
July
25 2001
WASHINGTON -- Congressional efforts to combat
global warming received an unexpected boost from a decision
this week by more than 180 countries to deal with the
problem without the United States, outside experts and
key lawmakers said Tuesday.
They added that prospects
now appear good that Congress will pass one or more
measures designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide,
which scientists say is the chief contributor to global
warming.
"The odds are improving that this
Congress will deal with the issue before the [2002]
election," said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.),
a leading environmentalist in his party. Several House
and Senate members said they were caught off guard when
the other countries adopted rules Monday in Bonn to
implement the Kyoto Protocol without U.S. participation.
"Bonn surprised people," said Sen. Joseph
I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). "The feeling was that,
if the United States took its football and left the
field, the game couldn't go forward. But the rest of
the nations of the world found their own football, and
they completed the game. They left the United States
on the sidelines."
In meetings in Europe last
week, President Bush cited congressional sentiment as
having contributed to his decision to play no role in
the development of rules to implement the 1997 accord
reached in Kyoto, Japan. The accord called on industrial
countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990
levels.
But sentiment in Congress has changed significantly
since the Senate voted, 95 to 0, four years ago to direct
the president not to sign a binding treaty to limit
emissions unless developing countries were required
to do the same.
Bush, who has characterized the
Kyoto accord as "fatally flawed," has promised
to address the issue of global warming. But so far his
proposals mainly have involved studying the problem
and redirecting funds to underwrite new technologies
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
After meeting
with his counterparts in Genoa, Italy, last week, Bush
agreed to produce a U.S. strategy to combat climate
change by the next meeting of Kyoto participants, scheduled
for October.
But on Capitol Hill, several efforts
to address climate change already are in motion.
Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), in his new role as chairman
of the Senate Environment Committee, is holding the
first hearing Thursday on legislation that would regulate
four pollutants emitted by power plants--including carbon
dioxide, which scientists consider the major contributor
to global warming.
Bipartisan bills have been introduced
in both houses to significantly tighten fuel-efficiency
standards for sport-utility vehicles and light trucks,
which would reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The
GOP-controlled House also has altered its stance on
climate change. Representatives have voted overwhelmingly
to strip language from funding bills that would prohibit
federal agencies from spending money to implement the
Kyoto accord.
Even two traditional climate-change
skeptics--Sens. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Ted Stevens
(R-Alaska)--are co-sponsoring a bill that would direct
the White House to create an office on climate change
and to produce annual strategies to reduce carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse emissions. Both senators represent
states that are major producers of fossil fuels.
"I think there's a greater willingness to go ahead,"
said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate
Energy Committee. "I don't know for certain where
the votes are. But I believe [senators] are less and
less comfortable with the administration's apparent
inability to form a policy. Some of that is about what's
happening internationally, and some of that is what
people are hearing from their constituents."
They agreed that the United States' awkward--some say
untenable--position on the sidelines of the Kyoto process
is increasing the prospects for congressional action.
"The events in Bonn will accelerate movements that
have begun here over the last several months toward
doing something to curb American greenhouse gas emissions,"
Lieberman said. "There has been a growing bipartisan
movement to take action even while the Bush administration
has been pulling away from the international process.
It really has been fascinating."
Eileen Claussen,
who was assistant secretary of State with responsibility
for climate change negotiations in the Clinton administration,
said she was amazed by the shift in attitudes in the
Senate.
"Kyoto was such a dirty word from the
end of 1997 until now," said Claussen, now president
of the Pew Center of Global Climate Change. "You
could barely go up to the Hill and say 'Kyoto' before.
You might have been able to say 'climate change,' but
any real interest in doing something about climate change
was only from a very small minority."
Sen.
John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a leader on climate change
policy in the Senate, said the agreement in Bonn improves
the odds that Congress will proceed on climate change
legislation, albeit in piecemeal fashion.
"I
think it increases the pressure--not necessarily to
pass a facsimile of the treaty but to embrace individual
initiatives that have an impact on emissions,"
Kerry said. "It will proceed in a step-by-step
process."
The combined effect of those steps,
he said, "may be quite significant."
Still,
Kerry expressed skepticism that a comprehensive strategy
could be passed without leadership from the White House.
"You can legislate to a certain degree, but without
an administration and the bully pulpit of the presidency,
it's exceedingly difficult to embrace a larger scheme."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she considered
it "deplorable and arrogant" that the administration
turned its back on Kyoto, noting that the United States
is responsible for about a quarter of the world's carbon
dioxide emissions.
"There's no question that
climate change is the No. 1 environmental issue in the
United States," she said.
Feinstein said she
believes that tightening fuel-efficiency standards for
SUVs and light trucks is the most important thing that
Congress can do in a "single stroke." Cars
and trucks account for about a third of carbon dioxide
emissions in this country.
Jeffords expressed hope
that at some point the United States will rejoin the
international effort to fight global warming. In the
meantime, he said, he will fight for passage of his
bill to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power
plants, which are responsible for an additional third
of U.S. emissions.
"I am hopeful we can get
it passed in the Senate," Jeffords said. "It's
not going to be easy if the White House pulls out all
the stops in opposition."
Earlier this year,
Bush reversed a campaign promise to regulate carbon
dioxide emissions from power plants, then pulled out
of the Kyoto accord.
Preliminary government estimates
show that carbon dioxide emissions, a major contributor
to global warming, jumped nearly 3% in the United States
last year while declining in other industrialized nations
and China.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
How U.S. Compares
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels,
in millions of metric tons:
U.S. (1998): 1,500
Japan: (1998): 1,000
Germany (1998): 500
Source:
U.S. Energy Information Administration
Copyright
2001, Los Angeles Times
------------------------------------
Loopholes in the Protocol will lower emission reduction -
excerpts from LA Times article
Pact: Loopholes mean the newly adopted Kyoto Protocol,
which the U.S. opposed, will fall well short of the
initial emission target.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
July 25 2001
BONN -- After
a good night's sleep and some sober contemplation, environmental
activists Tuesday conceded the Kyoto Protocol adopted
a day earlier falls far short of the lofty goals for
fighting global warming contained in the original proposal.
While still pleased that the pact could be rescued at
all despite opposition from the Bush administration,
analysts warned that the compromises made to win the
support of other key nations would reduce expectations
more than they would cut "greenhouse gas"
emissions.
Allowing countries to buy and sell pollution
quotas and offset emissions with carbon-absorbing forests
means the cut in output of carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases will be only about 2% below 1990
levels instead of the original aim to reduce them by
5.2%. And that scaled-back goal assumes that every country
will meet its individual targets. That may be optimistic,
now that harsh financial penalties for noncompliance
have been deleted from the protocol's text.
Also,
with emissions from the United States, which is outside
the agreement, having increased during the last decade
and showing no signs of cutting back, worldwide emissions
are expected to be above 1990 levels when the deadline
for meeting the first Kyoto commitments passes in 2012.
One major concession made during a 48-hour negotiating
marathon that ended with adoption of the protocol Monday
was the allowance for "carbon sinks."
By giving credit to Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia
for their vast farmland and forests, each will be able
to emit more than specified in the plan first defined
in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. That widened loophole also
would make the U.S. target easier to reach if the Bush
administration or its successor decides to return to
the Kyoto process.
European states fought against
the more liberal credit for land planted with carbon-absorbing
vegetation after 1990, noting the trees and plants could
be cut, mitigating the benefits.
The reduction targets
set out in this first phase of the agreement apply only
to 39 countries with the highest standards of living
and highest greenhouse gas outputs. Developing countries
will be included in future stages. Some environmentalists
warned that the forestry offsets could encourage Third
World countries to cut down old-growth and rain forests
now so they can replant and win lucrative emission trading
credits later.
"The agreement provides credits
for the creation of plantation forests in developing
countries, thus creating an incentive for countries
to liquidate their native forests and receive credit
for subsequent reforestation," said Mike Coda,
director of the Nature Conservancy.
If a country's
fossil fuel emissions are below the caps imposed on
them by Kyoto, they can sell that surplus capacity to
countries unable to meet their targets.
Greenpeace
criticized the weakened emission caps as "Kyoto
Lite," and the adopted version of the protocol
as "a lost opportunity."
"This agreement
here will probably permit, if all the loopholes are
used, emissions to increase rather than decrease"
by 2012, said Bill Hare, a spokesman for the international
environmental movement.
But the Union of Concerned
Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council
argued that the long journey to greenhouse gas reduction
had to begin with one small step. They say the focus
now should be to bring the United States on board.
"While the deal reached in Bonn is by no means
perfect, it is far better than the alternative of a
collapse in these negotiations," said Alden Meyer
of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
David Doniger
of the Natural Resources Defense Council urged those
disparaging the diluted initiative to keep in mind the
much higher price of failure.
"There was no
magic to the numbers decided in Kyoto. Everyone knew
that was a first step and that, if it went up a little
or down a little, it wouldn't matter," he said
of the figures applied to industrialized countries for
carbon reductions. "It's no surprise that we compromised
on sinks, and I don't judge the integrity of the protocol
in such negative terms."
Environmentalists
said the big challenge is not such details but getting
the protocol ratified by parliaments. It becomes a legally
binding treaty only after it is ratified by at least
55 countries whose collective emissions account for
55% or more of those from the industrialized states.
With the United States refusing to consider it, and
ratification facing a tough fight in Japan, supporters
will have to lobby intensively.
Copyright 2001,
Los Angeles Times
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Environmentalists
close Esso UK fuel terminal
UK: July 26,
2001
LONDON - Esso closed a fuel distribution centre
in eastern England yesterday after environmentalists
blockaded the plant in protest at global warming and
U.S. opposition to the Kyoto protocol.
Greenpeace
said 52 of its members, including four dressed as tigers,
Esso's advertising symbol, had shut down the company's
depot at Purfleet, Essex, trapping up to 20 tankers
inside.
Police said it was a "very peaceful
protest" and that about 10 demonstrators could
be seen on the roof of one of the buildings of the terminal.
Esso said protesters had gained access to the plant
early yesterday morning.
"To ensure the safety
of staff and the protesters, terminal operations were
immediately shut down. Consequently deliveries are currently
suspended," the company said in a statement.
"We are working with local police in an effort
to bring the protest to an end as soon as possible,
so that normal deliveries can be resumed."
A company spokeswoman said that the depot was a major
part of Esso's British business but it was too early
to say what effect the action would have on fuel supplies
to motorists. Contingency plans existed to deal with
supply disruptions.
Greenpeace said it had blockaded
the entrance and exit to the plant by bolting two large
shipping containers to the road.
A Greenpeace spokeswoman
said a group member dressed as a tiger had commandeered
a public address system inside the plant and was broadcasting
loud "growling noises".
Greenpeace spokesman
Rob Gueterbock told Reuters: "We've got the place
shut down. We'd like to stay until Esso say they will
support Kyoto and action on global warming."
Greenpeace accused Esso of influencing U.S. President
George W. Bush's decision not to abide by Kyoto.
Esso - the British arm of Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest
oil company - said this was a "ridiculous"
suggestion.
"There is no question that climate
change is an important issue and one that we we take
very seriously."
Esso was not immediately able
to confirm a Greenpeace assertion that Purfleet distributed
around 15 percent of the company's fuels in Britain.
Story by Giles Elgood
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
---------------------------------------------
Thursday
July 26, 1:52 AM
Bonn
deal on Kyoto is approved after last-minute drama
BONN, July 25 (AFP) –
A landmark
political deal on the UN's Kyoto Protocol was formally
adopted on Wednesday by signatory countries after facing
last-minute Russian demands for more concessions, delegates
said.
The package was adopted by a plenary session
of senior officials after a marathon negotiation round
by environment ministers.
The deal features big
concessions by the European Union to Australia, Canada,
Japan and Russia that weakened the climate-change pact
but at least enabled it to survive after its rejection
by the United States in March.
But the package had
to steer around final demands from Russia, which pushed
for extra concessions on the question of forest "sinks,"
one of the Protocol's hardest-fought arenas, Argentine
delegate Raoul Estrada told AFP.
Russia also raised
questions about access to the accord's trade mechanisms,
another headache issue. But both challenges will be
addressed in supplementary documents and adoption of
the deal was not affected.
If approved, these demands
would have further sapped Kyoto as a tool for tackling
dangerous emissions of "greenhouse" gases,
and conference chairman Jan Pronk sternly warned he
would not accept backsliding.
"I am here to
safeguard the integrity of the political agreement,"
he told delegates.
That tone found an echo from
European Union and developing countries, which spelt
out their commitment to the deal.
Kyoto commits
38 industrialised countries to cutting their emissions
of carbon-rich gases back to 5.2 percent below 1990
levels by a 2008-2012 timeframe.
Scientists say
these gases, mainly the byproduct of industrialisation,
are causing the Earth to warm, with potentially disastrous
effects on the global climate system for future generations.
The Russian objections threatened to unravel a delicately-assembled
accord that aimed at resolving two of Kyoto's hardest
issues.
Countries can claim forested and agricultural
land as "sinks" that soak up carbon dioxide
(CO2), the chief greenhouse gas, and can thus be partially
offset against their national emissions targets.
Under Monday's deal, the EU made big concessions on
"managed" forests -- forests that are managed
in an environmentally-friendly way.
Russia was given
a potential credit of 17.6 million tonnes of carbon-equivalent
per year in managed forest sinks to write off against
its national emissions targets.
But, just two days
after approving this, Russia contended its own calculations
showed it was entitled to 50 million tonnes per year,
Estrada said.
That objection will be treated in
a separate document as an "inconsistency issue
to be addressed."
According to the Worldwide
Fund for Nature (WWF), the concessions on sinks under
the Pronk deal already lowered the treaty's likely performance
to a cut in global emissions of just 1.8 percent, two-thirds
shy of its goal of 5.2 percent.
Climate scientists
say a cut of 50-60 percent is needed to keep the world'
climate system safe.
The other Russian challenge
was mounted in the area of Kyoto's market and trade
mechanisms, which provide incentives for curbing pollution.
Russia questioned the requirement that countries formally
accept Kyoto's compliance provisions before being allowed
to join the three mechanisms, Estrada said.
The
Russian objections came a day after the US questioned
aspects of funding for developing countries that, in
its view, could impinge on the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The US has said it will
not ratify Kyoto but will defend its interests if there
are any demands that require contributions from signatories
of the UNFCCC, Kyoto's parent treaty, of which it is
a member.
But the challenge was based on inconsistent
wording, which would be resolved in a supplementary
document to be issued by the UNFCCC, delegates said.
Two other big procedural hurdles await Kyoto before
it becomes a treaty under international law.
The
first is agreement on the mechanisms' complex operating
rules; the second is the risk that Japan and Russia
will drag their feet on ratifying the accord, thus delaying
its implementation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kyoto
deal approved after last minute scare
GERMANY:
July 26, 2001
BONN - The Kyoto accord on global
warming survived a last-minute scare yesterday after
technical wrangles held up final United Nations approval
of a political compromise struck earlier this week to
salvage the pact.
It took delegates from the
180-odd countries present in Bonn just three minutes
of a much-delayed plenary meeting to see the text formally
adopted, as no nation raised objections and chairman
Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister, brought down
his gavel.
Russia won special consideration - but
no major concession - for an issue it had raised, ending
a couple of days in which fears grew that the 11th-hour
deal struck by ministers on Monday after all-night negotiations
could founder on technical details.
There was applause
and a sense of relief after a hot, tense day in the
former West German capital that the Kyoto Protocol on
cutting greenhouse gas emissions, agreed in principle
four years ago, will now enter the final stretch of
legal drafting.
It will then be sent to national
parliaments for ratification.
Although the United
States, the world's biggest single emitter of greenhouse
gases, has rejected the 1997 pact under President George
W. Bush, U.S. delegates raised no objection.
"It
is a major result," Pronk told the meeting after
the deal was formally adopted. "Now we have to
build on that."
"It is now ratifiable,"
he told a news conference later, saying he still hoped
the remaining two days of a two-week U.N. meeting in
Bonn would be enough to agree the full legal texts,
in all six U.N. languages, for the treaty ratification
to begin.
Even if it were not, however, it would
pose no problem, he said. "The political agreement
stands," he told reporters.
If enough countries
ratify it quickly, it could be in force by next year,
forcing industrial nations to cut emissions of the industrial
greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.INCONSISTENCIES
Ministers had passed a deal brokered by Pronk on the
nod on Monday after a 24-hour bargaining marathon that
broke a deadlock between the European Union and Japan,
Canada and Russia.
But U.N. rules required a more
rigorous process to formally adopt the text as a U.N.
document.
In the haste and fatigue of those weekend
meetings, "inconsistencies" had crept in to
documents which ministers left their officials to iron
out, with nearly disastrous results.
"I was
afraid that discussion of inconsistencies could lead
to...an unravelling of the agreement," Pronk said.
The Russian delegation in particular fought to put right
what it saw was a discrepancy between what the weary
ministers agreed to on Monday morning and what had been
the consensus position on one key area.
This dealt
with how much it would be able to count its vast carbon-absorbing
forests against Kyoto's requirements that it cut emissions
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
As a compromise,
the plenary meeting agreed that Russia could propose
a technical amendment on these figures for discussion
in technical committees. Other delegates said they would
oppose it.
"We're not happy but we agree to
it," Russian delegation head Alexander Bedritsky
told Reuters.
In the absence of the United States,
the pact needs the support of most other industrial
states and especially of the other biggest polluters,
like Russia, the European Union and Japan, to come into
force.
Countries accounting for 55 percent of industrial
nations' carbon dioxide emissions must ratify it. The
United States accounts for about a third of the rich
world's output. (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald).
Story by Robin Pomeroy
REUTERS NEWS
SERVICE
---------------------------------------------
U.N.
talks officially adopt accord on Kyoto pact rules
BONN, July 25, Kyodo - The U.N. climate
conference on Wednesday officially adopted an accord
on core elements of rules for implementing the 1997
Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming, paving the way
for ratification of the treaty by the target year 2002.
The adoption was delayed for one day due to friction
among parties to the sixth session of the Conference
of the Parties (COP6) to the U.N. Framework Convention
on Climate Change over wordings of the text.
In
adopting the basic text, a product of political agreement
struck environment ministers attending the Bonn climate
conference on Monday, COP6 President Jan Pronk read
out a political declaration that shows guidelines for
the parties to compile a legal text by fleshing out
Monday's accord.
The accord on core elements of
the Kyoto pact operational rules concerns four areas
-- financial aid to developing countries, emissions
trading and other flexible mechanisms to help countries
achieve emission cuts, the use of forests to absorb
carbon dioxide, and a compliance system.
The COP6,
attended by delegates from 178 countries, continues
through Friday to turn the accord into a legal text.
In the political declaration, Pronk called on parties
to safeguard integrity of the Monday's political accord,
work intensively to reach a consensus on the legal text
by the end of the session Friday and guarantee fair
process in working out the text concerning details.
It is widely expected that the COP6 would not be
able to finish the work by Friday and much work will
be carried over to the COP7, the next round of the conference
slated to start in Morocco from late October, as parties
wrangle over the text with different interpretations.
The adoption of the accord, which was originally
scheduled for Tuesday, was delayed as several countries
raised concerns about ''editorial and technical'' adjustments
made by the UNFCCC secretariat to the accord by ministers,
claiming the changes have substantive and political
implications.
Japanese government officials pointed
out that modification of a provision on eligibility
in using emissions trading and other flexible mechanisms
to help countries achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets
under the protocol has caused friction.
Monday's
accord said only parties that accept the compliance
system supplementing the Kyoto Protocol shall be entitled
to transfer or acquire credits generated by the use
of those mechanisms.
The ministers also agreed
Monday to defer a decision on the binding nature of
the compliance system until after the pact comes into
force.
The secretariat deleted a sentence in the
ministers' accord on eligibility, reflecting the agreement
on the compliance system, and postponed a decision on
this issue.
Developing countries were opposed to
changes in the wording, while countries such as Japan,
Canada and Australia, which demanded postponement of
a decision on the compliance system, supported the modification.
Conference participants also said Russia objected
to the cap on its amount of carbon dioxide to be soaked
up by forests that can offset emissions, although the
figure for each developed country was set in the accord
and approved at Monday's plenary session.
2001
Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
All Rights Reserved
-------------------------------
Friction
over wording delays accord adoption at climate talks
BONN, July 25, Kyodo - Parties to the U.N.
climate talks here in Germany were still unable Wednesday
to officially adopt an accord on the core elements of
rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol approved
by ministers Monday due to friction over the wording
of the text.
The accord, which was reached Monday
following intense talks through the night, was supposed
to be adopted at a plenary session Tuesday.
But
the adoption has been delayed as several countries have
raised concerns about ''editorial and technical'' adjustments
made by the secretariat of the U.N. Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to the agreed text Tuesday,
claiming the changes have substantive and political
implications.
Japanese government officials pointed
out that modification of a provision on eligibility
in using emissions trading and other flexible mechanisms
to help countries achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets
under the protocol has caused friction.
The original
text approved Monday said only parties that accept the
compliance system supplementing the Kyoto Protocol shall
be entitled to transfer or acquire credits generated
by the use of those mechanisms.
However, the ministers
agreed in the accord Monday to defer a decision on the
binding nature of the compliance system until after
the pact comes into force.
The secretariat deleted
a sentence in the original text on eligibility, reflecting
the agreement on the compliance system, and postponed
a decision on this issue.
Developing countries
were opposed to changes in the wording, while countries
such as Japan, Canada and Australia, which demanded
postponement of a decision on the compliance system,
supported the modification.
Conference participants
also said Russia objected to the cap on its amount of
carbon dioxide to be soaked up by forests that can offset
emissions, although the figure for each developed country
was set in the accord and approved at Monday's plenary
session.
The Bonn conference, known formally as
the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP6)
to the UNFCCC, continues through Friday to translate
the accord into a legal text by fleshing it out with
details.
However, much work is expected to be carried
over to the COP7, the next round of the conference,
slated to start in Morocco from late October, due to
wrangling over the text.
2001 Kyodo News (c)
Established 1945.
All Rights Reserved
Excerpts from nuclear industry statements on the outcome of the Bonn agreement and the language that excludes the use of nuclear plants to count for emission reduction projects:
Nuclear Energy Institute response to language:
"We are frankly astonished...."
Foratom: "... it is regrettable that, for
purely political reasons,
delegates agreed to two
clauses that exclude nuclear power
projects from
two of the flexible mechanisms under the Kyoto
Protocol - the CDM and JI."
both
are dated 23 July and can be found at
www.nei.org
www.foratom.org
ENDS Daily
ISSUE 1036 - MONDAY
23 JULY 2001
Climate
deal prompts emotional response
When Jan Pronk
brought his gavel down today, confirming that all of
the 170-plus countries present accepted a compromise
deal on the Kyoto protocol finalised earlier in the
morning, he unlocked of a flood of emotion from delegates
visibly euphoric at having secured the accord. They
immediately rose in the first of several standing ovations,
bringing Mr Pronk to the verge of tears.
"We
needed this result in order to show that multilateral
agreements do make sense," he said. "This
is a triumph for multilaterism over unilateralism,"
added the Iranian head of the G77 developing country
bloc, Bagher Asadi. The statements, veiled attacks on
the USA's decision not to ratify Kyoto, were applauded
warmly and at length.
US delegate Paula Dobriansky
was unrepentant, however. Though she congratulated the
conference on its agreement, she said Kyoto was an "unsound
policy" which Washington would not ratify. Mr Pronk
thanked her for acting in good faith during the talks
and not obstructing an agreement.
Environmentalists
were quick to point to flaws in the deal, but their
overwhelming emotion was one of elation on a "historic
day". WWF's Jennifer Morgan called it a "geopolitical
earthquake" which would eventually mean "carbon
accounting" entering the bottom line of all businesses.
For Climate Network Europe's Rob
Bradley it was an "incredibly
positive move" showing that the world
was "willing to go ahead" in combatting climate
change. Green MEP Alexander de Roo said the agreement
was the first "baby-step" in the life of the
protocol, but a success because of the "dire straits"
that the process had found itself in the run-up to this
weekend's talks.
Business reactions tended to be
more negative. While the international chamber of commerce
said the deal represented "considerable progress,"
it was "concerned that additional detail is required"
for businesses to be able to make "expedient decisions."
The nuclear industry welcomed the positive environmental
effect of the deal but claimed that atomic power had
been excluded from the clean development mechanism based
on "politics and ideology" and not an assessment
of carbon-free technologies.
Meanwhile, the much-diminished
global climate coalition (GCC), whose members actively
lobby for the rejection of the treaty, said the deal
would make it less likely that the US would one day
return to Kyoto, since the restrictions on flexible
mechanisms would make reaching the targets "far
more expensive". "This deal will have a severe
impact on families, communities and companies,"
the GCC's Glenn Kelly told Environment Daily today.
Joint
EU Presidency and European Commission statement on the
successful conclusion of the Bonn climate change negotiations
23 July 2001
The European Union delegation to the
Bonn climate change negotiations (COP6) hailed today’s
agreement on a set of core elements for implementing
the Kyoto Protocol and funding assistance to developing
countries as an historic decision that would enable
governments to ratify the Protocol and bring it into
force.
"The Bonn agreement means that the Kyoto
Protocol can be implemented," said Olivier Deleuze,
head of the EU delegation. "The consensus on the
deal shows that the vast majority of countries want
the Protocol to succeed in starting the process of reducing
the man-made emissions of greenhouse gases that are
contributing to potentially disastrous climate change."
Margot Wallström, European Commissioner for the
Environment, said: "The operation to rescue the
Kyoto Protocol has succeeded. The EU made considerable
concessions to get this deal but it was a worthwhile
price to pay. This is a victory for the multilateral
negotiating process. It signals to citizens all over
the world that the international community is able and
willing to tackle global problems together."
"Now countries can finally move ahead and ratify
the Protocol," Ms Wallström added. "The
European Commission fully intends to present a proposal
for EU ratification before the end of the year so that
the process can be completed in 2002. I urge other signatories
to do the same so that the international community brings
the Protocol into force in time for the World Summit
on Sustainable Development in September 2002."
The EU representatives expressed hopes that the agreement
would encourage the United States administration to
reconsider its decision not to ratify the Protocol.
"To bring the US on board we needed a boat and
now we have one. The discussion should be easier now
that the US sees that the Kyoto Protocol is going ahead,"
said Mr Deleuze, Belgian State Secretary for energy
and sustainable development.
The conference’s
decision on implementation rules for the Protocol and
funding for developing countries has been complemented
by a political declaration by the EU and several other
countries reaffirming a strong political commitment
to increase climate change funding for developing nations
and to pay their fair share. This share is considered
to be EUR 450 million per year by 2005.
Contacts:
Vincent Georis +32 474 98 48 69
Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen
+32 498 9912 23
Tony Carritt +45 23 68 36 69
Tuesday
July 24 4:47 PM ET
Democrats
Criticize Bush on Kyoto
By H. JOSEF HEBERT,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate
Democrats sharply criticized the Bush administration
Tuesday for ``walking away'' from the Kyoto climate
treaty instead of working with other countries on ways
to make the accord affordable.
Deputy Energy Secretary
Francis Blake reiterated that the mandatory greenhouse
gas reductions required by the agreement were too costly
and not achievable without ``a forced march'' away from
the use of coal in power production.
Still, he said,
the administration would pursue an array of technologies
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and prevent more
carbon dioxide emissions from going into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels - especially
coal - is a principal greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide
emissions are expected to grow at an average rate of
1.4 percent a year over the next 20 years and ``we will
need a concerted effort to reverse this trend,'' Blake
acknowledged in testimony before the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee.
On Monday, negotiators
from 178 nations agreed to proceed with the Kyoto agreement,
working out implementation rules, without U.S. participation.
The pact commits industrial countries to roll back greenhouse
gas emissions to 1990 levels.
``I'm very disappointed
with what has happened on Kyoto,'' Senate Majority Leader
Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters, adding that he
had feared U.S. isolation on the issue. ``That's exactly
what happened.''
Speaking in Tokyo, Secretary of
State Colin Powell on Tuesday pledged that the United
States would continue to work with other countries to
overcome differences in addressing climate change.
``Hopefully we can present some new ideas,'' said Powell.
Committee Democrats denounced the administration's out-of-hand
rejection of the 1997 Kyoto agreement signed by the
Clinton administration, but not ratified by the Senate.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the Bush administration
position on climate change ``deplorable and arrogant''
since the United States accounts for only 5 percent
of the world's people and uses 25 percent of its energy.
``This country cannot afford to be a bystander on this
issue,'' added Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., citing headlines
in newspapers around the world noting America's isolation
on the climate issue.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.,
said that the agreements reached in the discussions
in Bonn, Germany, this week included ``all the flexibility
... the U.S. government and U.S. industry had long argued
were critical to a cost-effective strategy'' on meeting
the required reductions under the agreement reached
in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.
Issues such as getting
developing countries involved and fine tuning the agreement
``should not have resulted in the administration walking
away without a serious effort at remedying those defects,''
said Bingaman.
But Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, called
the Kyoto accord ``the product of politics not science''
and said its rejection by the administration has opened
new avenues to address the climate issue.
He and
several other GOP senators praised Bush for seeking
alternatives to Kyoto.
EPA Administrator Christie
Whitman, speaking to reporters during a break at another
Senate hearing, dismissed suggestions that the United
States is pursuing an isolationist policy when it comes
to climate change.
``We are not isolationist. We
are going to continue to work with the rest of the world,''
she said. ``We will continue to take our own steps ...
to address these issues.''
Blake said development
of new technologies are the key to dealing with climate
change, while not eroding economic growth.
``No
climate change strategy, no matter how flexible and
efficient, can support robust economic growth unless
lower cost and higher productivity technologies reducing
greenhouse gas emissions are readily available,'' he
said at the hearing.
----------------------------
Seattle
adopts Kyoto limits, scolds Bush
USA: July 24,
2001
SEATTLE - Seattle officials yesterday said
the city would meet greenhouse gas reduction targets
in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and blasted President George
W. Bush for pulling out of the international treaty.
"We are sending a message to the federal administration
that it is time to act, just like the rest of the world,"
Mayor Paul Schell told a press conference.
Dubbed
the Emerald City for its lush urban forests and boasting
some of the greenest power and waste programs in the
nation, Seattle pledged to beat the Kyoto goal to cut
carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels
and try to cut three times that much.
Largely through
conservation and purchases of wind power, Seattle will
meet rising local electricity demand without spewing
more greenhouse gases over the next decade and will
offset its entire emission load by planting trees, reducing
road traffic and recycling industrial waste and heat.
The mitigation would cost city-owned utility Seattle
City Light about $3 million a year, a tiny fraction
of the half billion-dollar annual budget, officials
said, rejecting Bush's assertion that the Kyoto treaty
would wreck local economies.
The United States is
the world's biggest polluters and the only major power
to pull out of the Kyoto treaty, although the remaining
signatories yesterday agreed to adhere to the targets
anyway at a meeting in Bonn.
"It's a scandal
that the White House won't step up to (the issue) and
Seattle has to," said City Councilor Jim Compton.
Seattle has a decidedly green advantage over the rest
of the nation, drawing most of its electricity from
hydropower dams strung across raging rivers slicing
through the U.S. Northwest.
And in fact those very
dams fuel sharp criticism from environmentalists for
blocking migrating salmon, including several endangered
species.
Still, praise rolled in from various green
groups for Seattle's efforts to go "climate neutral."
"Seattle Mayor Paul Schell is providing the environmental
leadership that is so obviously lacking in Washington,
D.C.," said Daniel Lashof, head climate scientist
at the National Resources Defense Council.
Local
residents, including many vocal environmentalists, voted
heavily against Bush in last year's presidential election,
though the statewide Washington ballot gave only a narrow
victory to former Vice President Al Gore.
Schell
said he had not talked directly to Bush but noted that
Bush's Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
Christine Todd Whitman had expressed an interest in
local conservation programs during a recent visit.
Schell hopes to marshal support from other U.S. municipalities
before taking Seattle's arguments directly to the White
House.
Beyond addressing local demand for green
policies, Seattle officials also see themselves on the
front line of the global warming debate, with big potential
environmental threats right in their own backyard.
Two years of drought have drained the region's reservoirs,
rivers and mountain snowpack to dangerously low levels,
forcing a temporary shutdown of a dozen hydroelectricity-powered
aluminum smelters, pitting farmers against salmon in
a battle for precious water and disrupting power supplies
up and down the west coast.
"The cost of not
acting could be extraordinarily high. At its current
pace global warming will reduce the region's snowpack
by 50 percent over the next 50 years, threatening drinking
water, irrigation and hydroelectric supplies,"
the city said in a statement.
Seattle residents
and companies have responded to a call for water and
power conservation during the drought, helping hold
down utility rate hikes, the city has said.
Story
by Chris Stetkiewicz
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
----------------------------
What
they said at the Bonn climate conference
NETHERLANDS:
July 24, 2001
BONN, Germany - Here are some quotes
from key players at the climate summit in Bonn where
world governments clinched a historic deal yesterday
to save the Kyoto protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse
gases.
CONFERENCE CHAIRMAN AND DUTCH ENVIRONMENT
MINISTER JAN PRONK
"We had made a promise.
Citizens, the electorate, people did expect us to reach
a result," he said.
"We felt that we needed
that result not only for climate reasons but also to
show that multilateral negotiations within the framework
of the United Nations do make sense."
"Now
that globalisation is meeting so much criticism it is
extremely important to show that global developments...can
be met and addressed by global responsible decision-making.
That augers well for other developments on our earth,"
he said.
EUROPEAN UNION ENVIRONMENT COMMISSIONER
MARGOT WALLSTROM
"We have rescued the Kyoto
protocol," she said. "We can go home and look
our children in the eye and feel proud of what we have
done."
"It is a compromise but it is a
deal, but we will have to adapt it and adjust it in
the years to come," she said. "We are happy,
tired but happy."
"We were capable of
showing the United States and our citizens and the NGOs
that we could come to an agreement without the United
States."
BELGIAN ENERGY MINISTER AND EU NEGOTIATOR
OLIVIER DELEUZE
"From the beginning...Europe
has had a very clear and cohesive attitude on this.
Some people have tried to portray this as being naive
or anti-economy, but I think Europe as a whole has played
a very positive role."
"Without chauvinism,
arrogance, in a spirit of cooperation, this accord is
important for Europe," he said.
"Almost
every country in the world has chosen to stay in the
Kyoto process," he said. "One country not
playing the game is one too much."
PAULA DOBRIANSKY,
U.S. UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS
"The Bush administration takes the issue of climate
change very seriously and we will not abdicate our responsibilities,"
she said.
"Although the United States does
not intend to ratify that agreement we have not tried
to stop others from moving ahead as long as U.S. interests
are not threatened," she said. "It does not
change our view that the protocol is not sound policy."
JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT MINISTER YORIKO KAWAGUCHI
"The
government of Japan is pleased to join in the consensus,"
she said. "Today's agreement is a vital step forward
into realising into force the Kyoto protocol by 2002."
"We should try to encourage all our friends to
join us in our common effort to address global warming,"
she said. "Global warming requires us to mobilise
our wisdom and courage as we sail across uncharted seas
into the future discussions."
AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENT
MINISTER ROBERT HILL
"Most important is that
the international community...has shown a determination
to address this major environmental, social and economic
challenge. We are still only making very tentative steps
along a very long road," he said.
BRITISH ENVIRONMENT
MINISTER MICHAEL MEACHER
"It's a brilliant
day for the environment," he said. "It's a
huge leap to have achieved a result on this very complex
international negotiation. It's a huge relief."
BAGHIR ADASI, IRAN AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS
"The success of Bonn is the very direct outcome
of dialogue, mutual understanding and a sense of engagement,"
he said. "This represents the triumph of multinationalism
over unilateralism."
NEW ZEALAND DELEGATE PETER
HODGSON
"We have delivered probably the most
comprehensive and difficult agreement in human history,"
he said.
JENNIFER MORGAN, DIRECTOR OF WWF CLIMATE
CHANGE CAMPAIGN
"This first small step is a
giant leap for humanity and for the future of our planet,"
she said.
"The agreement is a geopolitical
earthquake," she said. "Other countries have
demonstrated their independence from the Bush administration
on the world's most critical environmental problem."
GREENPEACE ACTIVIST BILL HARE
"It shows that
George Bush is totally isolated in the climate debate,"
he said.
PHILIP CLAPP, PRESIDENT OF U.S. NATIONAL
ENVIRONMENT GROUP
"It is a major foreign policy
defeat for President Bush. Japan was in the hot seat
of world opinion with the fate of the treaty in its
lap," he said.
ROBERT WATSON, MEMBER OF INTERNATIONAL
PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, THE U.N. SCIENCE BODY
"It's
an extremely important first step," he said. "It
will result in reduced emissions in those countries
that ratify."
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------
World
clinches climate deal, US isolated
GERMANY:
July 24, 2001
BONN - Ministers from nearly 200 countries
clinched a historic deal yesterday that should force
most rich industrial nations to curb the air pollution
blamed for global warming, but left the United States
isolated.
An all-night bargaining marathon in Bonn
saw European Union ministers finally break a deadlock
with Japan over how the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting
greenhouse gas emissions would work in practice, paving
the way for the treaty to come into force.
Another
failure, after the collapse of a summit at The Hague
in November, could have killed it off for good following
U.S. President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the
pact in March.
"It's a brilliant day for the
environment," a weary but elated Michael Meacher,
the British environment minister, told Reuters."It's
a huge leap to have achieved a result on this very complex
international negotiation. It's a huge relief."
Environmentalists voiced some disappointment at what
they called loopholes in the deal. Greenpeace dubbed
it "Kyoto-Lite".
But they said that any
accord which made a start on curbing dangerous warming
of the Earth's climate and the threat of rising sea
levels due to melting ice was better than nothing.
Amid bleary smiles and multiple standing ovations for
conference chairman Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment
minister, there was irritation that Bush had rejected
any deal in advance, saying Kyoto's mandatory emissions
would hurt the U.S. economy.
"One country not
playing the game is one too many," said the EU's
chief negotiator, Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze.
U.S. STANDS BY REJECTION
Bush endorsed a general
commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a weekend
summit in Genoa of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial
powers but insisted Kyoto was "fatally flawed".
That had left the EU's hopes of rallying a critical
mass of the remaining industrial nations behind the
pact dependent on getting Japan on board. Tokyo's reservations
on technical issues and its desire to avoid leaving
its U.S. ally isolated kept the result of the negotiations
in doubt to the very last moment.
In the end, not
one of the 180 or so states present voiced objections
to the final compromise, not even the United States
- though Washington repeated that it will not ratify
the pact.
Only the 30-odd most developed nations
would, if they ratify the treaty, have to cut emissions
and their support was the key factor in meeting criteria
for the deal as a whole to survive.
Some delegates
hailed a new, global diplomatic elan from the 15-nation
EU, while others saw a triumph for United Nations "multilateralism"
over the "unilateralism" of the United States
and the riot-hit "rich man's club" of the
G8 in Italy.
"It shows that George Bush is
totally isolated in the climate debate," said Greenpeace
climate activist Bill Hare.
Bush's representative
in Bonn, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, told
delegates: "Although the United States does not
intend to ratify that agreement we have not tried to
stop others from moving ahead as long as U.S. interests
are not threatened."
Some observers in the
hall heckled her remarks, in a rare interruption of
the festive atmosphere.
In a conciliatory gesture,
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in Tokyo
his government would "continue maximum efforts"
towards "an agreement inclusive of the United States".
Canada, another U.S. ally on environmental issues which
only belatedly swung behind Monday's deal, also said
it hoped to see a promised new climate policy from Bush
"converging" on Kyoto.
DOWN TO THE WIRE
Four years of negotiation had often pitched the EU,
with its desire for tough targets on cutting emissions,
against the likes of Japan, Canada and Russia who wanted
more flexible mechanisms.
After the failure at The
Hague, those disputes boiled down to four tense days
in Bonn. When Pronk put forward a take-it-or-leave-it
compromise deal, immediately backed by the EU, ministers
began a 24-hour race to break Japanese-European deadlock
on one key issue - how punitively the targets would
be enforced.
"We felt we could not fail twice,"
Pronk said. "Citizens, the electorate, people did
expect us to reach a result."
As dawn came
up over the Rhine and fears nagged that delay could
wreck the entire process, the EU found room to give
ground, dropping the word "legally" from descriptions
of how binding the hitting of emissions targets would
be on countries.
The ministers left haggling over
the small print to civil servants spending the rest
of the week in the former West German capital. EU officials
insisted targets would still be binding.
Spontaneous
applause rang out in the hotel conference room where
fatigued ministers had bargained throughout the night.
"We have rescued the Kyoto protocol," said
EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom. "We
can go home and look our children in the eye and feel
proud of what we have done."
Not to be outdone
in superlatives, New Zealand delegate Peter Hodgson
said: "We have delivered probably the most comprehensive
and difficult agreement in human history."
Forested nations like Canada, Russia and Japan won concessions
from the EU to be able to offset carbon-absorbing forests
against targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Disappointed environmentalists say that means the cut
is only about a third of the original goal of reducing
industrial countries' greenhouse gas output to 5.2 percent
below 1990 levels by 2012. But it was better than nothing.
Said Jennifer Morgan of environment group WWF's climate
change campaign: "This first small step is a giant
leap for humanity and for the future of our planet."
(Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy, Emma Thomasson
and Alastair Macdonald).
Story by Matt Daily
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
---------------------------------------------
Tuesday July 24 8:30 AM ET
Kyoto
Deal Brings Relief, Questions
By GEIR MOULSON,
Associated Press Writer
BONN, Germany (AP) - With
a deal finally reached on implementing the 4-year-old
Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change, ministers and
environmentalists are expressing relief.
But much
remains to be done before its rules become reality -
a goal made more difficult since the United States abandoned
the accord.
A 48-hour session reaching well into
Monday saved the accord, which appeared close to collapse
under Japanese opposition to binding sanctions for violators
of the treaty.
Those were dropped as nations pushed
to avoid a repeat of last November's failure in The
Hague, Netherlands, to agree on rules for reducing industrial
pollution.
``Nobody wanted a failure,'' said Michael
Zammit Cutajar, the top U.N. official dealing with climate
change. ``The deadline really bit this time.''
Still,
Monday's outcome left Tokyo's intentions on ratifying
the treaty unclear and the United States - the world's
leading producer of greenhouse gases - no closer to
rejoining it.
President Bush rejected the pact in
March, calling it flawed and harmful to the U.S. economy.
With environment ministers gone, experts from 178 countries
will spend the rest of this week hammering out technical
details to back up the political agreement, which clears
the way for more nations to ratify the protocol.
``We made a tremendous political advance today,'' Cutajar
said Monday. ``If there's sufficient confidence,'' the
next U.N. climate conference in Marrakesh, Morocco,
in October could ``start to look ahead beyond the issues
that we have been dealing with now,'' he added.
To take force, the accord must be ratified by 55 countries
responsible for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions, blamed for heating up the atmosphere. The
30 nations that so far have ratified the protocol include
none of the world's largest industrial powers.
On
Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirmed
that the protocol was not acceptable to the United States.
He said the United States has a good record on environmental
issues and wasn't shirking its responsibilities