No credible alternative to the Kyoto protocol has emerged, and unilateral or bilateral measures will not be enough to address the problem, writes Olav Kjorven.
Global climate change is now recognised as an unparalleled threat to human development and potentially the greatest challenge facing our generation and the next. With much talk and not enough international action, it would be easy to despair of finding workable solutions to mitigate or adapt to the Earth's environmental crises.
International Ozone Day on Saturday gave us pause for thought. Do you remember the hole in the ozone layer? Anyone reading the news in 1985 knew all about its discovery. Chlorofluorocarbons - CFCs for short - became an unlikely buzzword, and a generation of teenagers stopped using damaging aerosol deodorants and started getting "sun smart". Twenty years later, the hole is shrinking and signs are the ozone layer will return to safe levels in the next 50 years. This reversal of fortune is thanks in no small part to the Montreal protocol, a prime example of how the international community can work together for the environment and the global good when it needs to.
The question everyone is now asking is whether the Kyoto protocol can also produce the necessary results. The answer is that, like the Montreal protocol before it, it is the only viable option the international community has. With the right kind of political support it can work.
The Kyoto protocol is an international agreement signed in 1997 under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The 34 industrialised countries that so far ratified it have committed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases. When added together this would mean emissions from these countries would be 5 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Some will need to engage in emissions trading to meet their commitments.
Few people now dispute that climate change has occurred and will continue do so in coming decades, even if we were to cease all emissions tomorrow. We know that the planet has warmed by 0.7 degrees over the past century. There is 30 per cent more carbon dioxide in the air now than at any time in the last 800,000 years. If emissions continue at current rates, by 2050 we could have locked ourselves into a rise in global temperatures of 2 to 3 degrees, possibly more.
What we don't know for sure is what effect temperature changes of this magnitude will have on our world. Scientific consensus and common sense indicate that the effect will be bad. We could face more extreme weather patterns, or even abrupt climate change if certain critical environmental thresholds are breached. Some areas will become drier and others wetter. Overall variability will increase and water flows will be more unpredictable, which will, in part, be linked to more frequent and extreme weather events. The UN Development Programme stresses that poor and vulnerable nations will be hit the worst. Almost half the population of sub-Saharan Africa - some 300 million people - lives on less than $1 a day and depends almost entirely on rain-fed agriculture. Climate change has the potential to completely undermine our efforts to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, and to adversely affect the entire global community.
The Kyoto protocol has laid the foundations for an international response to these changes, but Kyoto requires a different type of political commitment and a different level of international co-operation than the Montreal protocol did.
The Montreal agreement benefits from being specific. It targets only ozone-layer depletion, on which there is much scientific certainty and consensus. It covers a limited range of gases, all of which have cost-effective substitutes. It involves emission reductions from a more limited number of sources, and its impacts are more easily measured. As a result, it has been, economically speaking, affordable to implement, and mustering broad political support was therefore easier.
The Kyoto protocol operates on a much more ambitious scale, striving to limit emissions from millions of different sources, including fossil fuels like coal and turf, and accompanied by much greater risk and uncertainty. Add to this the fact that the international economy runs on fossil fuels, and weaning ourselves off them will take a great deal of time and money.
The US, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, has declined to ratify the protocol, and global emissions - now well above 1990 levels - are growing rapidly. Some countries will struggle to meet their emission targets, and their commitment to do so expires in 2012. Though I paint a gloomy picture, it is clear that no credible alternative to Kyoto has emerged, and unilateral or bilateral measures will not be sufficient to address the problem.
The Kyoto protocol deals with greater political complexity, involves more adjustment and incurs higher costs than the Montreal protocol. This does not mean that it won't work, despite the rising chorus criticising its approach.
In fact, it is a step in the right direction. It demands more flexibility and creativity from the international community; more countries will need to sign on to it; the number and type of binding commitments needs to increase. But if it gets the necessary political support it will produce results. We need specific stabilisation targets, and substantive emission reduction commitments, now; Kyoto can help. The international community needs to stop talking and start taking concerted action.
Olav Kjorven is director of environment and energy at the UN Development Programme