Kyoto Protocol "Much Ado About Nothing" - Enel CEO
Date: 16-Nov-07
Country: ITALY
Author: Svetlana Kovalyova
The Kyoto Protocol is the only international agreement on climate change. It ties 36 rich nations to caps on heat trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions until 2012.
"Kyoto has proved totally ineffective on the practical side," Enel CEO Fulvio Conti said in a speech at the World Energy Congress.
"Even a full achievement of Kyoto targets will produce a mere 1.5 percent reduction of global emissions. Much ado about nothing," he said.
Conti spoke ahead of a United Nations environment ministers' meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali early next month when they are to agree to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto treaty, which expires in five years' time.
Conti said the treaty makes the European thermoelectric power sector bear 90 percent of emission reduction costs, while it accounts for only 30 percent of emissions, creating major market distortions.
He also called for scrapping of limits imposed by the Kyoto Protocol on the the so-called flexible instruments -- Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) -- which allow rich countries to carry out CO2 reduction projects in poorer countries at lower cost than at home.
Conti said CDMs and JIs are mutually beneficial as they allow EU countries to save money while cutting CO2 emissions in third countries and therefore globally.
The post-Kyoto policy should involve all countries, be based on long-term and reasonable targets, be driven by market mechanisms and boost the use of flexible instruments, he said.
Turning to European power market liberalisation over the past 10 years, Conti said the picture was patchy. Some countries, like Italy and Britain, were success stories, while others have retained monopolies and failed to unbundle transmission networks.
Conti, whose company has just taken over Spanish rival Endesa, said cross-market mergers and acquisitions would boost pan-European power market liberalisation.
(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova, editing by Anthony Barker)
