NZ should not rush into Kyoto climate pact - CHH
Date: 10-Sep-01
Country: NEW ZEALAND
The NZ government said last month it would seek to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by September 2002, after a compromise agreement was reached at a meeting in July of around 180 nations at a United Nations conference in Bonn.
The compromise struck in Bonn maintains the pressure to limit industrial pollution but, in allowing trading in emissions output levels, has introduced more flexible ways for countries to meet their target cuts.
Carter Holt, half-owned by U.S.-based forest products giant International Paper , said it applauded the NZ government's sentiment but saw fish hooks in ratifying the deal after the United States said it would not.
The forestry firm - which operates New Zealand's major pulp and paper plants and owns large areas of plantation forest - said it would be costly for New Zealand to comply with the protocol's requirement that it cut emissions to 1990 levels.
"Australia has negotiated an eight percent increase in their pollution over 1990 levels...(and) many other countries have negotiated 'special concessions'," Carter Holt said.
The government should slow down the process, consider the actions of trading partners and study the risks and consequences of ratifying the protocol, it said.
The Bonn deal on how to cut greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, was a last-minute compromise to rescue the 1997 Kyoto treaty which has been rejected by U.S. President George W. Bush.
The United States, which produces nearly one third of the carbon dioxide gas output of wealthy nations, said the Kyoto protocol threatened its economy because the pact did not include big developing nations, such as China and India.
For the Kyoto protocol to take effect, it must be ratified by countries accounting for 55 percent of the 30-odd wealthy industrial nations' carbon dioxide emissions - which is blamed for global warming.
New Zealand has been falling short of its Kyoto target of cutting emissions to 1990 levels, with emissions from the energy and industrial process sectors rising 22 percent between 1990 and 2000 - to 31.1 million tonnes a year from 25.5 million tonnes.
The centre-left government of Prime Minister Helen Clark is considering negotiated greenhouse pacts for energy-intensive industries and those with high emission levels but also faces a particular problem in its rural sector.
The country of just under four million people has 50 million sheep and cattle. The belching and flatulent livestock produce 44 percent of New Zealand's greenhouse gases, compared to less than 10 percent in most developed countries.