  |
|
Technical gains but no political breakthrough at climate talks
By Richard Ingham
AFP
NAIROBI
Petroleumworld.com 15 11 06
Negotiators on Tuesday forged several technical deals on combatting climate change ahead of a three-day meeting of the world's environment ministers, but progress on tougher political problems remained elusive.
Delegates attending a marathon conference of the UN Convention on Climate Change struck a deal on how a fund to help poor countries adapt to global warming will be managed, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said.
"It was very encouraging progress," de Boer said.
The so-called Adaptation Fund is a key innovation of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark UN pact to curb greenhouse gases.
The Fund has already been launched but to date only has three million dollars, de Boer said.
Fuelled by voluntary contributions and by levies on one of Kyoto's mechanisms for carbon trading, the fund is widely expected to reach hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, although de Boer admitted its ultimate size "is very difficult to say."
Its goal is to provide finance to help vulnerable countries gain technology and expertise to cope with drought, rising sea levels or storms triggered by disruption to Earth's climate system.
Delegates also agreed on a five-year work programme to identify areas in rich and poor countries alike that could be vulnerable to climate change.
In addition, they agreed rules for defining which projects should be eligible under Kyoto's "Joint Implementation" (JI) initiative. JI is a scheme by which rich countries that transfer clean technology to former Soviet eastern European countries can gain carbon credits that they can trade or offset against their own emissions goal.
Agreement came ahead of a three-day conference by environment ministers or their stand-ins, due to be launched on Wednesday by UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan.
Despite these steps forward, several important questions related to the Adaptation Fund were postponed for debate until 2007, and the two biggest political problems still cast their shadow over the 189-nation talks in the Kenyan capital.
One is how to breathe life into talks on how to frame cuts in greenhouse gases when Kyoto runs out in 2012.
The European Union (EU) is hoping for signs from big developing countries such as Brazil, China and India, that post-2012 they will join industrialised countries under Kyoto in making targeted pledges to curb their emissions.
The other is how to coax the United States, the world's No. 1 carbon polluter, into stepping up cooperation with Kyoto countries on long-term reductions in greenhouse-gas discharges.
The United States, like Australia, has refused to ratify Kyoto, an absence that many experts say seriously weakened a treaty that took life only in February 2005 after years of bitter haggling.
Cutting carbon emissions carries an economic cost as it requires a shift in energy efficiency or towards clean technology.
President George W. Bush says Kyoto's caps are too costly for the US economy, and developing countries argue that the global warming problem was caused first and foremost by rich countries, which thus should shoulder the burden.
British Environment Minister David Miliband on Tuesday urged Bush to use the final years of his term to join worldwide cuts on carbon pollution.
"It's essential that the United States is part of a global agreement to binding global carbon reductions," Miliband told reporters as he toured the Nairobi slum of Kibera.
"I can't think of a greater legacy for the last two years of the Bush presidency than to work on a bipartisan basis with Democrats as well as Republicans" for a deal to reduce emissions, he said.
Meanwhile, financial experts on Tuesday warned that climate change could so amplify the effect of weather disasters that droughts, storm surges and other natural catastrophes could cost as much as a trillion dollars in a single year by 2040.
"Most insurance and re-insurance companies have no doubt that the rising tide of losses from weather-related disasters is linked with climate change," said Thomas Loster of German reinsurance giant Munich Re.
"The possibility of a one-trillion-dollar-loss year is one scenario out of many, but whatever the precise figures the losses are already large and set to increase."
AFP 14 1638 GMT 11 06
Copyright© 2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels