Agreement reached on climate change report
International delegates have reached an agreement on the best ways to combat climate change, despite efforts by China to water down language on cutting destructive greenhouse gas emissions.
The closed-door debate in Bangkok, Thailand, over everything from nuclear power to the cost of cleaner energy, ran into the early hours with quibbling over wording. Consensus was eventually reached on a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists and delegates from more than 120 nations.
“It’s all done,” said Peter Lukey, a member of the South Africa delegation. "Everything we wanted to see was there and more. The message is: We have to do something now."
China, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after the US, took a strong stance during the four-day meeting in Thailand. Along with India and other developing countries, it had pushed to raise the lowest target for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, delegates said.
A draft of the report proposed the world limit concentrations of greenhouse gases to between 445 parts per million and 650 parts per million, but China sought to strike the lower range over fears it would hinder its booming economy, Michael Muller, Germany’s vice-minister for the environment, said before the agreement was reached.
According to a partial version of the finalised document seen by the press, China’s efforts failed to remove the lower emission target from the report.
“This is still an excellent report,” French delegate Michel Petit said, adding that China and the other developing countries ended up compromising on all major issues. “Nothing important was removed during the process.”
The report is the third segment of an overall IPCC blueprint that will shape the way the world tackles global warming.
The final version was not made available when the meeting broke up at 4.30am local time, but delegates said it largely resembled a draft version that said emissions could be cut below current levels if the world shifted away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, embraced energy efficiency and significantly reduced deforestation.
“The strong message (from the report) is that it’s possible to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at the level where severe climatic change can be avoided,” said Lars Nilsson, a delegate from Sweden.
Two previous IPCC reports this year warned that unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 6C by 2100. Even a 2C rise could subject up to two billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20% to 30% of the world’s species, the IPCC said.
The third report, expected to be formally announced later, makes clear the world must quickly embrace a basket of technological options – both already available and developing – just to keep the temperature rise to 2C.
Much of this week’s debate has centred around how much it will cost to adopt greener policies.
China is facing increasing international pressure as its economy expands – it posted 11.1% growth in the first quarter – and it pumps increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
At this week’s meeting, Beijing campaigned for wording that would clearly blame the top industrialised countries in North America and Europe for global warming and give them the responsibility for solving it, rather than latecomers like China and India, delegates said.
Chinese delegates did not discuss their positions publicly, but environmental activists suggested yesterday that China was being unfairly targeted, saying it was making strong efforts to improve energy efficiency and rein in emissions.
The US remained surprisingly quiet on most issues at the meeting, but some delegates said it appeared to be content letting China take the lead.
But the US delegation was vocal over the role nuclear power could play in efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses. European nations reminded policymakers not to forget the security risks that could be associated with that.
