INTERNATIONAL

Kyoto-The Hague-where does it go from there?

Since the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janerio in June 1992, a reliable and lasting climate protection policy has been one of the core elements of 'sustainable development'. A milestone on the way of implementation of the climate protection targets was the 'Protocol of Kyoto on the Framework Agreement of the United Nations on Climate Change' adopted in 1997. The document related to the UN framework agreement adopted in New York in May 1992.

The delegates at the Kyoto conference agreed on binding greenhouse gas mitigation targets. The industrialized nations undertook to reduce their emissions of green house gases to 2008 or 2012 by an average of 5.2 per cent compared with the levels of 1990 or 1995, the different benchmarks are based on the type of gas involved. The reduction rates vary greatly from one country to another. EU countries as a whole are to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 8%, with Germany having a 21% target under the EUs internal burden-sharing system. The USA is to cut its emissions by 7 percent, and Japan and Canada by 6 percent each. The Kyoto Protocol also contains a list of gases that must be reduced.

The document leaves open where and by which methods the reduction targets must be achieved. That was to have been negotiated and decided at the conference in The Hague, held November 13-24 last year, which was attended by about 10,000 delegates from more than 180 countries. The Kyoto Protocol is supposed to come into force under international law in 2002. But it will not take effect until at least 55 countries that are responsible for at least 55 percent of the industrialized nations' emissions have ratified it.

However, the UN climate conference in The Hague, the sixth of its kind, failed. It became a summit of haggling over ways to implement, re-interpret or even circumvent the reduction targets so that the delegates' own countries had to make as few changes as possible. Environmental groups, observers and most of the conference participants were unanimous on this verdict. It can not be shaken by the statements of some politicians, including German Federal Environment minister Jurgen Trittin, who did not want to speak of failure in order to keep the door open to achieve the conference goals. But in his government policy statement on the conference to the German Bundestag, even Trittin spoke of a "'setback for climate protection". A solution to the problems arose in The Hague is, however, to be sought again at a follow-up conference in Bonn, July 16-27.

One of the main bones of contention at The Hague conference was the issue of whether part of the agreed co2 reductions could be offset by afforestation and agricultural processing of the soil. In the Kyoto Protocol, this is called establishing 'sinks'. By explanation, plants are able to absorb the co2 that plays a large part in global warming. They need it for growth, convert it by photosynthesis to vegetable matter, release oxygen and store the carbon. But the 'sinks' idea has a catch to it. The plants store the carbon for only a certain time. In the long-term they are co2 neutral. When they die they release the stored carbon. True, due to the longer life of trees, afforestation could delay the return of carbon to the atmosphere. But there is always the risk that the pests, disease or fires could destroy the forest. Some scientists have pointed out than an increased concentration of co2 could have a fertilizer effect, thereby boosting both the plants' growth and their capacity to reduce carbon di oxide levels in the atmosphere. But experts at the Federal office for the environment reject that. They point out that at present the world population emits some 26 million tons of co2 per year. They say that, at best by means of the fertilizer effect 28% of the total could be stored in the biosphere, and at worst only 5%. An economic question should not be overlooked in this connection. What is to be done if one country observes the Kyoto agreement and renounces logging, and another exploits the ensuing gap in the market to sell its own timber?

Another point of dispute in The Hague was so-called emissions trading. This is a loophole in the Kyoto Protocol, article 6, that permits countries with high greenhouse gas emissions to buy pollution credits from countries that emit fewer gases than is allowed. Russia and Ukraine were named as potential sellers because due to the major decline in their economies following the end of the USSR they produce fewer harmful gases than their official proportions would permit. Not only many delegates at the conference but also most of the rich countries, some of which are massive polluters, to buy themselves out of their reduction obligations. The German government sees the idea as endangering the credibility of the industrialized nations' stance on climate protection. Minister Trittin asks: "Can it be that countries such as the USA, which alone accounts for more than one-third of all emissions of the industrialized nations, save themselves from climate protection measures mainly by buying emission reductions? He also sees the emissions trade as sending a wrong signal to the business world in the industrialized countries. He says the short term, cheap method of saving emissions via the developing countries prevents what is unavoidable in the long term. That is, the development and refinement of environment friendly products which enable both economic growth and environmental protection.

There is similar skepticism over proposals, which the Kyoto protocol expressly allows, to allow nations to earn credit notes by promoting emissions-reducing projects in developing countries. The idea is that this could give donor countries more leeway over their own emissions. The Protocol's article 12 labels it a 'Mechanism for environmentally sound development'. In the run up to The Hague conference, Trittin and his counterparts in other EU countries agreed on a 'positive' list of permissible project categories. "That should guarantee that only high efficient and truly sustainable technologies will be deployed," he told Bundestag a few days before the conference. Above all, industrialized nations were to be prevented from buying themselves out of reduction measures by supplying obsolete or low-grade technologies to developing countries. An editorial in a leading German newspaper put bluntly what politicians were saying privately after the failure of the Hague conference. "'The world climate conference has failed because the USA wanted it to. For the country mainly responsible for global warming is not prepared to change its Way of Life". The writer pointed out that in Kyoto the USA had declared itself willing to reduce its co2 emissions by 7% compared to the level of 1990. But the US emissions have actually risen by 11% to 2000, and experts say that instead of a reduction an increase of 28 percent to 2010 must be expected. Besides the US, the delegations from Canada, Japan and Australia also spoke out for a greater crediting of 'sinking' and for trading in emissions. In general, the industrialized nations resisted binding regulations that would require them to make most of their cuts in their own countries. The EU nations and developing countries rejected that. It should be noted that in general the developing countries emphatically supported the EUs negotiating position. Observers believe that the reason that some industrialized nations turn a well-known blind eye to the dangers of climate change is their business sectors' interests and the widespread assumption that the disaster will take place somewhere else.

Had the Europeans signed a protocol in The Hague that would have undermined the ecological integrity of the Kyoto agreement, the conference would not have failed. But it would have wrecked every serious attempt to at least limit further global warming. There were also voices, including that of President of the German Nature Conservation Federation, Nabu, Jochen Flasbarth, who argued for signing of the Kyoto Protocol even, if necessary, without the approval of the US. Officially, such a 'solution' would, in fact, have been possible. But agreement on the design of the regulations, which is what the Sixth Climate Conference is supposed to be about, is based on these conferences' principle of consensus. So even if a conference partner does not consent, the other countries can let the protocol come into force-but without the rules on its implementation. Trittin began talks with representatives of other industrialized nations immediately after The Hague conference which, with an eye on the resumption of the conference in Bonn, were to sound out a political accord. Text courtesy: IN-PRESS number ST 3-2001, Embassy of Germany in Kathmandu.