Gold9472
12-09-2005, 09:24 PM
U.S. Delegation Walks Out of Climate Talks
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/americas/09cnd-climate.html?ex=1291784400&en=72aa8b913709fe3a&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: December 9, 2005
MONTREAL, Dec. 9 - Two weeks of treaty talks on global warming neared an end today with the world's current and projected leaders in emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, still refusing to take any mandatory steps to avoid dangerous climate change.
The Bush administration was sharply criticized by environmental groups for walking out of a round of informal discussions shortly after midnight that were aimed at finding new ways of curbing gases beyond steps taken so far.
The walkout was widely seen here as the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed.
"This shows just how willing the U.S. administration is to walk away from a healthy planet and its responsibilities to its own people," said Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund.
The talks have left the world's major sources of the emissions - the United States, big developing countries, and a bloc led by Europe and Japan - divided over how to proceed under both a 1992 treaty with no binding gas restrictions and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that took effect this year.
The Kyoto pact sets binding restrictions on gases, but they apply only to about three dozen industrialized countries. The United States and Australia have rejected it.
In Washington, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, defended the American opposition to binding restrictions on the gases and, instead, a focus on long-term work to develop cleaner technologies.
"If you want to talk about global consciousness, I'd say there's one country that is focused on action, that is focused on dialogue, that is focused on cooperation, and that is focused on helping the developing world, and that's the United States," Mr. Ereli said.
Early in the afternoon, former President Bill Clinton gave a hastily arranged speech to the thousands of delegates in which he sketched a route around the impasse that included gentle rebukes of those seeking concrete targets and also of the Bush administration.
Mr. Clinton said countries should pay less attention to establishing global targets for emissions and more to discrete initiatives to advance and disseminate technologies that could greatly reduce emissions in both rich and poor countries.
In a comment clearly directed at the Bush administration, he noted that the United States had adopted a precautionary approach to fighting terrorism. "There is no more important place in the world to apply the principle of precaution than the area of climate change," he said, generating waves of applause.
"I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future," Mr. Clinton said. "We know what's happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."
In a statement, Paula Dobriansky, the head of the American delegation, said public events like Mr. Clinton's presentation were "useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change."
The meeting is the latest in a 17-year string of sessions aimed at moving both industrial powers and fast-growing developing countries toward cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and forests.
They have produced two agreements. The first, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, was accepted by nearly all the world's countries, including the United States, but includes no binding targets and never defines an unacceptably dangerous concentration of greenhouse gases.
The Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the first treaty negotiated in 1997, took effect in February.
It was signed by the United States under Mr. Clinton. But, facing strong opposition to the treaty in the Senate because it required no actions of big developing countries and could be costly, he never submitted it for ratification.
The Kyoto pact was rejected outright in 2001 by President Bush, although he has not withdrawn the United States' signature.
At the Montreal meeting today, countries bound by the Kyoto pact were close to agreeing on a plan to negotiate a new set of targets and timetables for cutting emissions after its terms expire in 2012.
But under pressure from some countries that were already having trouble meeting Kyoto targets, the language included no specific year for completing talks on next steps, instead indicating that parties would "aim to complete" work "as soon as possible."
In a news conference, environmental groups tried to cast that decision as a successful signal to emerging markets in credits earned by cutting greenhouse gases.
Some groups and several members of the Senate also said there were significant new signs at the talks that developing countries were beginning to consider taking on responsibilities to find ways to grow economies without growing emissions.
Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and Brazil all proposed ways to add incentives for reducing destruction of rain forests to the climate agreements.
China agreed to additional discussions under both the 1992 treaty and Kyoto about ways to involve big developing countries in projects that could curb the heat-trapping pollution - as long as they did not involve binding limits.
But even if the eventual new talks under the Kyoto treaty lead to new targets, some scientists said today that they would be insufficient to stem harmful warming without much broader actions by the biggest and fastest-growing polluters.
In a statement from London, Lord Martin Rees, the new president of Britain's Royal Society, an independent national scientific academy, said that ongoing disputes among wealthy nations over how to cut the gas emissions were distracting them from actually carrying out steps to make the cuts.
Environmental campaigners insisted that the Kyoto process would eventually force other countries, particularly the United States, to act by building a market for credits achieved by making deep cuts in carbon dioxide and the other gases.
"As Kyoto deepens and broadens, U.S. business and industry will mount irresistible pressure on United States leadership to re-engage in the process rather than be shut out of markets of the future," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group that supports binding cuts in heat-trapping gases.
But lobbyists and groups associated with businesses that oppose such restrictions scoffed at the prospect of a meaningful carbon market.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, one such group, worked the halls, distributing mock emissions credits.
These are the chits created under a "cap and trade" system for controlling pollution that allow those businesses that make cuts beyond requirements to sell the extra tons to others.
In this case, the mock credits were printed in five languages on rolls of toilet paper.
But environmental groups did not sit idle.
The National Environmental Trust distributed custom-printed noise-making rubber whoopee cushions printed with a caricature of President Bush and the words "Emissions Accomplished."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/americas/09cnd-climate.html?ex=1291784400&en=72aa8b913709fe3a&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: December 9, 2005
MONTREAL, Dec. 9 - Two weeks of treaty talks on global warming neared an end today with the world's current and projected leaders in emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, still refusing to take any mandatory steps to avoid dangerous climate change.
The Bush administration was sharply criticized by environmental groups for walking out of a round of informal discussions shortly after midnight that were aimed at finding new ways of curbing gases beyond steps taken so far.
The walkout was widely seen here as the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed.
"This shows just how willing the U.S. administration is to walk away from a healthy planet and its responsibilities to its own people," said Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund.
The talks have left the world's major sources of the emissions - the United States, big developing countries, and a bloc led by Europe and Japan - divided over how to proceed under both a 1992 treaty with no binding gas restrictions and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that took effect this year.
The Kyoto pact sets binding restrictions on gases, but they apply only to about three dozen industrialized countries. The United States and Australia have rejected it.
In Washington, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, defended the American opposition to binding restrictions on the gases and, instead, a focus on long-term work to develop cleaner technologies.
"If you want to talk about global consciousness, I'd say there's one country that is focused on action, that is focused on dialogue, that is focused on cooperation, and that is focused on helping the developing world, and that's the United States," Mr. Ereli said.
Early in the afternoon, former President Bill Clinton gave a hastily arranged speech to the thousands of delegates in which he sketched a route around the impasse that included gentle rebukes of those seeking concrete targets and also of the Bush administration.
Mr. Clinton said countries should pay less attention to establishing global targets for emissions and more to discrete initiatives to advance and disseminate technologies that could greatly reduce emissions in both rich and poor countries.
In a comment clearly directed at the Bush administration, he noted that the United States had adopted a precautionary approach to fighting terrorism. "There is no more important place in the world to apply the principle of precaution than the area of climate change," he said, generating waves of applause.
"I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future," Mr. Clinton said. "We know what's happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."
In a statement, Paula Dobriansky, the head of the American delegation, said public events like Mr. Clinton's presentation were "useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change."
The meeting is the latest in a 17-year string of sessions aimed at moving both industrial powers and fast-growing developing countries toward cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and forests.
They have produced two agreements. The first, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, was accepted by nearly all the world's countries, including the United States, but includes no binding targets and never defines an unacceptably dangerous concentration of greenhouse gases.
The Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the first treaty negotiated in 1997, took effect in February.
It was signed by the United States under Mr. Clinton. But, facing strong opposition to the treaty in the Senate because it required no actions of big developing countries and could be costly, he never submitted it for ratification.
The Kyoto pact was rejected outright in 2001 by President Bush, although he has not withdrawn the United States' signature.
At the Montreal meeting today, countries bound by the Kyoto pact were close to agreeing on a plan to negotiate a new set of targets and timetables for cutting emissions after its terms expire in 2012.
But under pressure from some countries that were already having trouble meeting Kyoto targets, the language included no specific year for completing talks on next steps, instead indicating that parties would "aim to complete" work "as soon as possible."
In a news conference, environmental groups tried to cast that decision as a successful signal to emerging markets in credits earned by cutting greenhouse gases.
Some groups and several members of the Senate also said there were significant new signs at the talks that developing countries were beginning to consider taking on responsibilities to find ways to grow economies without growing emissions.
Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and Brazil all proposed ways to add incentives for reducing destruction of rain forests to the climate agreements.
China agreed to additional discussions under both the 1992 treaty and Kyoto about ways to involve big developing countries in projects that could curb the heat-trapping pollution - as long as they did not involve binding limits.
But even if the eventual new talks under the Kyoto treaty lead to new targets, some scientists said today that they would be insufficient to stem harmful warming without much broader actions by the biggest and fastest-growing polluters.
In a statement from London, Lord Martin Rees, the new president of Britain's Royal Society, an independent national scientific academy, said that ongoing disputes among wealthy nations over how to cut the gas emissions were distracting them from actually carrying out steps to make the cuts.
Environmental campaigners insisted that the Kyoto process would eventually force other countries, particularly the United States, to act by building a market for credits achieved by making deep cuts in carbon dioxide and the other gases.
"As Kyoto deepens and broadens, U.S. business and industry will mount irresistible pressure on United States leadership to re-engage in the process rather than be shut out of markets of the future," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group that supports binding cuts in heat-trapping gases.
But lobbyists and groups associated with businesses that oppose such restrictions scoffed at the prospect of a meaningful carbon market.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, one such group, worked the halls, distributing mock emissions credits.
These are the chits created under a "cap and trade" system for controlling pollution that allow those businesses that make cuts beyond requirements to sell the extra tons to others.
In this case, the mock credits were printed in five languages on rolls of toilet paper.
But environmental groups did not sit idle.
The National Environmental Trust distributed custom-printed noise-making rubber whoopee cushions printed with a caricature of President Bush and the words "Emissions Accomplished."