THE EU is determined that a new global agreement to combat climate change will be modelled on the Kyoto Protocol, with specific targets and penalties for non-compliance, one of its top negotiators said yesterday.
Sweden’s Anders Turesson, who is leading the EU delegation in Bangkok, told a press briefing that it was seeking “one single legal instrument”, similar to Kyoto “with all its bits and pieces”, rather than something more general.
Noting that the EU had gained a “lot of experience” from implementing the protocol adopted 12 years ago, Mr Turesson said it wanted to advance discussions on how Kyoto and its mechanisms could be improved and developed.
The US, which declined to adopt the protocol under president George W Bush in 2001, is seeking a more general agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to include major developing countries such as China.
Asked if the once-fragile Kyoto Protocol was “effectively going to be murdered here”, Mr Turesson said: “We are now talking about another rescue operation. The EU is going to seek to have it revived and even strengthened into the future.”
The talks needed to “accelerate and focus on key issues”, he said, and although no “big compromises” were likely in Bangkok, each party’s position should be clarified to “see if we can find common ground” in advance of the Copenhagen conference in December.
Referring to “the complexity of the issues of who should do what and who should pay for what”, Mr Turesson said these were “extremely political”. Yet the EU was “still not in the same negotiation room as the US when it comes to emission reduction commitments”.
He said the EU needed to see that the US and others are “going at the same speed”, and it would “very much like the US to take on commitments as we do”. But the EU was faithful to the Kyoto system “in its entirety because you cannot pick and choose in this”.
Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the European Commission’s climate change negotiations unit, also underlined the need for “compliance and enforcement” provisions in any new treaty covering commitments to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
While progress was being made on technology, capacity building and adaptation – the “candies of the process”, as he described them – most of the delegations representing nearly 180 countries had yet to make clear what each of them was prepared to do.
“It’s a catch-22 situation,” he said. “Developing countries are saying ‘you need to show leadership’, while developed countries say ‘we need to see the colour of your cards’. Everyone needs to move one step forward, but nobody is going to make the big jump.”
Mr Runge-Metzger said the EU had done that two years ago by offering a 20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020, and up to 30 per cent if other countries made comparable efforts.
The recent 25 per cent cut offered by Japan “helps us very much”, he added.
He said time had moved on since the US Senate voted in 1997 by 99 to zero against any deal that did not also bind China and other major developing economies.
The “sea change” was indicated by Indonesia’s “very clear” offer to cut its emissions by 26 per cent.
At the weekend, President Barack Obama’s chief energy adviser, Carol Browner, said that it was “not likely” that the climate change and energy Bill introduced in the US Senate last week would be signed into law before December’s Copenhagen conference.
“Obviously, we’d like to be through the process, but that’s not going to happen,” she told a conference organised by Atlantic magazine, just days after the long-awaited Bill was introduced by two leading Democrats, senator Barbara Boxer and senator John Kerry.
But Angela Anderson, of the US Climate Action Network, said in Bangkok that speculation on whether or not the Bill would be passed in advance of Copenhagen was akin to “handicapping a horse race”. However, she believed it was “absolutely possible”.
“We will do our darndest to hold them to the schedule,” she declared, adding that the US delegation at the climate talks would have to “start putting figures [for emissions cuts] on the table” when they resume for a week-long session in Barcelona early next month.
“Sometimes it’s hard to see progress. But the big picture is that the US is not the elephant in the room it was a year ago; it’s a different animal now. It’s already taking action to cut emissions and the Bill in Congress will make this an economy-wide policy,” she said.
Outside the UN conference building, Thai police with riot shields stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder as the Asian Peoples’ Solidarity for Climate Justice campaign staged a rally attended by hundreds demanding a fair deal in Copenhagen that would not penalise the poor.