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CLIMATE CHANGE: Looking to Life After Kyoto

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Feb 24 2006 (IPS) - Even before the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol’s first period can begin, a dialogue has been launched on limiting climate change after the current agreement ends in six years.

And it is not too early. Questions enough have been raised about the Kyoto deal to question its continuation in its present form after the first implementation period 2008-2012.

The Protocol, signed in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, is an agreement by industrialised countries to reduce emissions of so-called greenhouse gases by at least 5.2 percent from 1990 levels over the first implementation period.

Greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide and methane, arise from the burning of fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil. These gases are believed to lead to abnormal global warming by trapping the Sun’s heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and consequently to a disruption of sensitive climate patterns, leading to climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol binds participating industrialised countries, listed in Annex I of the agreement, to cut emissions on the principle that industrialised countries produce the largest amounts of emissions through industry and transportation, and therefore bear prime responsibility to reverse the problem.

But the largest pollutant, the United States has remained on the sidelines of the Kyoto Protocol. And the agreement does not cover rapidly industrialising countries like China, India, Brazil and Mexico. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the G8 summit (the group of eight most industrialised countries: United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Russia and Japan) in July last year that a global agreement such as Kyoto means little if the significant exceptions do not join in with commitments to cutting emissions

This led to strong differences between the G8 countries, minus the United States, on one side and the developing countries on the other. The new dialogue announced in London Friday seeks to find a way around these differences post-2012.

The new three-year dialogue has been launched by COM+: The Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development and the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), a network of lawmakers from around the world.

The COM+ Alliance is a partnership of international organisations and communications professionals from diverse sectors committed to using communications to promote sustainable development. COM+ members include the BBC World Service Trust, the World Bank, IUCN (World Conservation Union), the Reuters Foundation and Inter Press Service (IPS).

The dialogue will bring together legislators from the G8 countries as well as from India, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Spain and Australia and international business leaders and civil society “to generate an understanding of the beyond-Kyoto scenarios and to discuss a 2012 climate change agreement.”

The dialogue aims to “shadow the formal G8 climate change process up to the Tokyo Summit in 2008.”

The United States has been the most difficult customer to get on board, but several U.S. lawmakers have been keen to join this new process. “There has been considerable interest from the U.S., and a number of legislators from there will join us at an event in Washington DC,” British parliamentarian Joan Ruddock told media representatives at the Friday launch.

The initiative has secured funding from government, business and from international bodies such as the World Bank, she said.

It is clear from the word go that the initiative will seek to rope in the United States and major developing countries into any new agreement. Emissions cuts by the signatory countries will be of little avail if emissions from the major developing countries “wipe out these gains,” Margaret Beckett, British secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, told media representatives in a video message.

The industrialised world recognises the needs of the developing countries and also the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities recognised in the Kyoto Protocol, but a way still has to be found to “minimise the impact of their growth on climate change,” she said.

A new dialogue is necessary because “over the next 20 to 30 years emissions from developing countries will exceed those from the developed world,” World Bank vice-president Ian Johnson said.

Some of the options being considered include technology transfer and making use of a new generation of energy supply, Johnson said. The World Bank is already supporting financing of renewable energy, but the challenge ahead is to find ways of scaling that up, he said.

Blair, who was seen by many environmental groups to have bought the arguments of the U.S. administration under President George Bush against the Kyoto Protocol, was careful in welcoming the new initiative. Blair has kept Britain bound to its commitments under Kyoto, but he has made it clear that he would not support a Kyoto kind of arrangement beyond 2012.

“Legislators have a crucial role in raising awareness, encouraging debate in their constituencies and, of course, holding their leaders to account,” the prime minister said in a message at the launch of the initiative.

Blair acknowledged that the G8 countries must continue to take a leadership role in efforts to limit climate change. “It is our economies and societies which are still largely responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases,” he said. “We must take urgent action to reduce the damage we are doing. We also have the economic power and research and development capacity to come up with the technological solutions needed to make the changes necessary without damaging prosperity.”

But, he said, an “effective and sustainable solution also needs the involvement of all the world’s large energy users.” While countries such as China and India have a right to develop, “the challenge is to help them learn from our experiences so they grow sustainably and minimise the impact on our planet.”

Blair said the good news is that new technology is fast becoming available, “whether through renewable energy, cleaner fossil fuel technology, hybrid vehicles or energy efficiency to enable economic development without locking in long-term emissions increases.”

The fears are that the cost of such technology would raise the price of manufacturing and energy in developing countries, and that G8 governments are providing little of the financing needed so far for such technology transfer.