UN forum in Rio to set up "environmental" market
Date: 03-Sep-01
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Andrei Khalip
They hope the business potential of the market, with an expected turnover of $10 billion to $15 billion a year for the next 15 years or so, will tempt big US companies to support the plan.
The main commodities of the new global market are quotas for greenhouse gas emissions for private companies and countries, low-emission technologies and investment in lesser developed countries, U.N. officials told a news conference.
"It is a fascinating process of the creation of a new market, with new commodities, which still needs rules to work," said Rubens Ricupero, a Brazilian, who is secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.
The quotas would be imposed only if and when the Kyoto treaty on global warming comes into effect. The future of the Kyoto accord, however, is still in question after the United States - the world's biggest polluter - rejected it.
Last month, environment ministers meeting in Germany reached a compromise deal to salvage the Kyoto treaty, calling on nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012. The protocol should become a workable treaty and be brought into force next year.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT IT?
"The question now is how to implement that, minimizing sacrifice of the economy," said Ricupero.
For the 30-some industrially developed nations there will be a market for emission certificates, or quotas for harmful gas emissions, that can be traded.
Investing in low-emission industrial technologies for lesser developed countries, forest planting and other projects, these countries would be able to get "credits" in the form of higher emission quotas.
Ricupero underscored that Brazil, one of the world's largest developing countries, could receive a great deal of investment in the future as it needs many new gas-fired power plants to withstand a severe energy shortage.
"This is the area which has a lot to do with gas emissions and the technology costs quite a lot. Forest planting can also bring big investment, given the size of deforestation here," he said.
"No nation, however powerful it is, can go in the opposite direction than other nations on the planet.... We are getting some positive signs already," said Earth Council President Maurice Strong.
Ricupero said that Canada and Brazil, the biggest countries in the Americas, along with the United States, should do their best to convince US President George W. Bush's administration to return to talks on global warming.
"It is in the interest of the US private sector. They are the world leaders in this technology and they will only win by supplying this technology to others."