Europe leads talks on global warming
European participants at a UN global climate conference in Argentina are leading discussions on ways to cut greenhouse emissions after 2012, looking beyond the time frame laid out to curb global warming set by the Kyoto Protocol.
Yvo de Boer, the chief EU negotiator, said Russia’s recent ratification of the Kyoto Protocol had inpired the nearly 200 nations at the conference to consider a post-Kyoto framework to curtail the gases blamed for Earth’s warming.
“The general sense is that the atmosphere has dramatically changed and dramatically improved as a result of Russian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol,” de Boer said.
“Where there was a great reluctance before the Russian ratification to begin any discussion towards the future, that situation has clearly changed.”
Added Jaap Frederiks, another EU negotiator with the Dutch delegation: “The time has come to think about the next step. We’ve always said Kyoto is not enough. Kyoto is just a start,” he said.
The US and Australia are the biggest industrialised country to have rejected the Kyoto Protocol, a landmark agreement that takes effect in February and requires 30 of the world’s developed nations to reduce their output of heat-trapping gases produced by industry, automobiles and power plants.
Developing countries, facing possible emissions controls for the first time after 2012, have resisted opening talks about the “post-Kyoto” future. Under Kyoto, governments pledged new limits on emissions by industrial nations.
Russia last month ratified the accord in a major political boost that further highlighted the US opposition as one the biggest greenhouse gas polluters.
But the US stance, which has rankled European allies, hung over the annual UN gathering even as governments began discussing what comes after Kyoto.
“The main thing Russian ratification brought about is confirmation that the Kyoto Protocol is a global institution, and the US really is the odd one out,” said Frederiks.
A US climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, said Tuesday that the United States should not be considered an environmental villain by supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, arguing the Bush administration plans to spend $5bn (€3.75bn) annually on research and technological development related to global warming.
