Highlighting a rift between the rich countries and emerging economies
like China, New Zealand’s climate minister staunchly defended his government’s
decision to drop out of the emissions pact for developed nations, saying it’s
an outdated and insufficient response to global warming.
Other key issues at the
conference, now starting its second week, include how to help emerging nations
switch to climate-friendly energy sources and charting the course for a new
treaty that would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which covers only developed
countries.
New Zealand announced before the
U.N.’s climate talks started here last week that it would not take part in the
second phase of the Kyoto treaty. That angered climate activists and stunned
small neighboring island nations, who fear they could be submerged by rising
sea levels spurred by global warming.
Climate Minister Tim Groser told
The Associated Press on Sunday that New Zealand is “ahead of the curve” by
shifting its attention from the 1997 Kyoto deal to a new global climate pact
that would also include developing nations.
The U.S. never ratified Kyoto,
which expires this year, partly because it did not impose limits on China and
other emerging economies.
Australia and European countries
want to extend the pact at the current conference in Doha until a wider treaty
comes into force. That is not scheduled to happen until 2020.
Groser didn’t see a point in
that, because those countries together represent less than 15 percent of global
emissions.
“You cannot seriously argue you
are dealing with climate change unless you start to tackle the 85 percent of
emissions that are outside (Kyoto),” Groser said. “We’re looking beyond Kyoto
now to where we think the real game is.”
A majority of emissions of
heat-trapping gases that most climate scientists blame for rising global
temperatures currently come from developing countries, and China is now the
world’s top emitter. Beijing argues it must be allowed to increase its
emissions as it economy expands, lifting millions of people out of poverty.
It also insists that Western
nations bear a historical responsibility for climate change, since their fossil
fuel factories spewed emissions into the atmosphere long before China started
industrializing.
China therefore wants to retain
the sharp division between rich and poor countries that has guided the
slow-moving climate talks since they started two decades ago. Rich countries
want to get rid of that distinction, which they say doesn’t reflect the world
today.
New Zealand is on course to meet
its Kyoto targets from the first commitment period, but climate activists at
home and abroad say its decision to opt out of the extension has tarnished its
reputation as a green leader.
“New Zealand’s position is
contributing to a political stalemate that is distracting from the real issues
of these talks,” said Simon Tapp from the New Zealand Youth Delegation.
Instead of binding Kyoto targets,
New Zealand has offered a voluntary pledge of cutting emissions by between 10
percent and 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
Groser said New Zealand wouldn’t
firm up its pledge until after the Doha talks. The country wants to know if it
can continue using Kyoto’s trading mechanism for emissions credits, which some
countries say should be available only to those that set emissions targets.
“I have advised my Cabinet,
literally I’ve said to them, ‘assume minimum rationally will prevail,’” Groser
said. “Then I will come back after this meeting here and make a recommendation
as to what unilateral figure we can do.”
Negotiators in Doha are also
locked in disputes over how to help poor countries switch to renewable energy
and adapt to shifts in climate that may damage health, agriculture and
economies in general.
China and other developing
countries demand that rich countries present a “road map” describing how they
will scale up climate financing to $100 billion annually by 2020, a pledge they
made at a climate summit in Copenhagen three years ago.
With budgets under pressure from
the world financial crisis, rich countries are unwilling to put money on the
table in Doha, but they say such financing will become available eventually.
They note that they have delivered the $30 billion promised as “fast-start
financing” in Copenhagen, though some aid groups say much of it came from loans
or previously pledged foreign aid simply relabeled as climate money.
As many of these issues are
linked to each other, failure to agree on one could stall progress on others,
meaning the Doha talks could end without agreement on anything.
The core climate problem is also
receiving attention, and the conclusion is not positive.
A host of reports before and
during the talks have underlined that the gap between what science indicates is
needed to address climate change and what governments are actually doing is
growing wider. One report, by the United Nations Environment Program, showed
greenhouse emissions have risen 20 percent since 2000.
“We begin the final week of
negotiations in Doha with the sober recognition that time is running out to
prevent the loss of entire nations and other calamities in our membership and
around the world,” a group of small island nations said in a joint statement
Sunday.
AP
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