Talks continue on compromise to save Kyoto pact

By C. Rammanohar Reddy

BONN, JULY 22. A last-minute compromise package that would put the troubled Kyoto Protocol on climate change into effect had not been approved by delegates to the U.N. climate conference until late on Sunday, the last day of the high-level segment, but Ministers and officials affirmed that they would keep looking for an agreement even if the talks were to go on into the early hours of Monday. The draft under discussion, put together late on Saturday by the chairman of the conference, Mr. Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, goes a long way to making it easier for the developed countries to meet their targets for lower emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming, but these concessions are considered essential if the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, is to have any hopes of survival.

The Pronk text cedes considerable ground to Japan, Canada and Australia, who wanted a greater recognition of the role of forests in soaking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For the European Union, which has accepted the draft, it is ``a hard compromise'' in the words of Mr. Jurgen Tritten, Environment Minister of Germany, as the grouping had hitherto been opposed to giving too much importance to these ``carbon sinks''. The use of sinks in national emission reduction programmes means that fossil fuel emissions will not have to be strictly controlled. In spite of these concessions, Japan, Canada and Australia were not ready to immediately endorse the compromise proposal.

Many Government delegates feel that failure to reach a deal in Bonn will effectively kill the Kyoto Protocol. But an agreement here would not make a difference to the U.S., which insists it is fundamentally opposed to the Kyoto Protocol. What a deal will mean, however, is that all the other developed countries will go ahead with their commitments to reduce the emission of GHGs by 2008-12.

Allowing countries to factor in the result of afforestation programmes in working out their Kyoto targets for GHG emissions is only one component of the package. A second element is that it outlines a compliance mechanism and penalties, under which countries that do not meet their targets by 2008-12 will be required to do so in the second period (2013-17) and in addition pay a small penalty by way of a larger reduction of emissions. Third, the advanced countries agree to provide new and additional finance to the developing countries to enable introduction of clean technologies, though funding for the proposed Climate Change Fund will be voluntary. And, fourth, a provision that has indirect implications for India is that any aid programmes by the industrialised countries that establish nuclear power stations in the developing countries will not be counted as part of reduction of GHG emissions. Nuclear power does not emit GHGs and is therefore advocated by some lobbies as a useful way to control global warming. There was some speculation earlier that programmes like the Russian package for the Koodankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu could be counted by Russia as part of its contribution to emission reductions.

Most environmental groups pointed out a number of problems with the Pronk compromise package but still gave it a cautious welcome. The World Wildlife Fund said it believed the new package was ``a step towards a strong architecture for the Kyoto Protocol and, although it still contains a number of loopholes, provides a sound basis for countries to ratify and start reducing their greenhouse gas emissions''. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth accorded a similar cautious welcome to the Pronk compromise.

On a day when hectic negotiations were going on to save the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, was criticised here for offering, during the G-8 summit in Genoa, to come up with a new package when the next session of the climate talks is held in Morocco in October. This was seen as an attempt to sabotage the efforts to arrive at an agreement in Bonn. An eagerness to strike a compromise pact here itself is also seen - especially by the E.U. - as sending a message to the U.S. that the Kyoto Protocol cannot be held hostage to the whims of the U.S. This is also why many of the environmental groups, who had strongly criticised much the same compromise package when it was offered in The Hague last November, are now endorsing it. But everyone agrees that as long as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide stays outside Kyoto, global efforts will have a limited impact on climate change.

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Section  : International
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