UPDATE - Haggling continues over climate treaty
Date: 12-Nov-01
Country: MOROCCO
Author: Gilles Trequesser
Environment and energy ministers from around the world, gathered in Morocco, worked against the clock to agree on a detailed rulebook that will govern the complex agreement aimed at limiting humanity's negative impact on the Earth's climate.
Delegates said a compromise text produced by the chairman of the meeting proved acceptable to the European Union and the G77 group of developing countries but was rejected by the "umbrella group", which includes Russia, Japan, Australia and Canada.
"We simply want to improve it so that it is usable and workable and unless it is workable it is not going to be good for environmental integrity," Japanese Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told Reuters on the last scheduled day of the two-week U.N.-sponsored conference.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol commits developed countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide (CO2) from fuel combustion in industry - blamed for global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere, by an average of five percent of 1990 levels by 2012.
The long-term aim is to curb the artificial warming of the climate and its consequences: rising sea levels, melting ice caps, changing rainfall patterns, increased flooding and more frequent droughts, according to U.N. scientists.
THE RUSSIAN "CARBON SINKS"
The Kyoto pact was rejected in March by the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases, the United States, and has yet to enter into force elsewhere.
Following the abrupt U.S. withdrawal, all eyes have been on Russia and Japan which have yet to say unequivocally that they will go ahead with the agreement.
The "umbrella group" highlighted five problems with the compromise text.
They mostly had to do with how countries will be forced to comply with the pact's pollution-cutting targets and complex rules on the use of emissions they can offset by counting carbon stored in trees and vegetation.
An additional and equally difficult problem was Russia's demand to increase its recourse to these "carbon sinks".
Under an agreement reached at the last conference in Bonn in July, Russia was allowed to claim a maximum 17 million tonnes of carbon per year from these "sinks". It said at the time the figure was wrongly calculated and wants 33 million tonnes now.
"If this figure is not accepted we will not support the (proposed compromise) document," Alexander Bedritsky, Russia's chief delegate, told reporters.
EU and G77 sources said a new proposal put forward would give Russia 25 million tonnes but the Russians had rejected it.
The EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom agreed that foot-draggers could delay the ratification of the Kyoto pact.
"We are very close. I am still optimistic but it could take the night," she told Reuters.
Asked if she knew of high-level contacts between EU leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin to lead Moscow to adopt a more flexible view she said they "might" have taken place.
"If necessary, pressure could happen," she added.
PLENARY SESSION ADJOURNED
The EU has said it will ratify Kyoto by 2002, but the treaty must be ratified by at least 55 countries responsible for 55 percent of 1990's CO2 emissions before it can come into force.
That requirement makes the support of the umbrella group countries vital, in particular Japan and Russia.
Conference Chairman Mohamed El Yazghi, who is also Morocco's environment minister, chaired a one-hour plenary session last week night but adjourned it after an hour to return to the negotiations.
New Zealand Energy Minister Peter Hodgson summed up the mood.
"I remain optimistic that a resolution is still possible. But right now...there is more will to resolve than actual resolution," he told Reuters.
Environmentalists, who have deplored the watering down of the Kyoto Protocol, were incensed.
"It's totally unacceptable that a small group of countries can hold up a deal that the rest of the world wants," said Kate Ham
