Climate change talks move at glacial pace

By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Published: June 12 2009 18:06

Time is running out for climate change talks, with another meeting of world governments ending on Friday, this time in Bonn, with little progress towards a new agreement on greenhouse gases.
Officials are now pinning their hopes on the summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations next month, where the subject will be discussed by world leaders. They may feel more freedom to make compromises than their environment and finance ministers, who failed to do so at the United Nations conference in Bonn and at other recent side meetings.

US president Barack Obama has also called a follow-up meeting to take place in Italy immediately after the G8 summit, where the world’s 15 biggest emitting countries – including emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil – will attempt to find common ground.
There are at least two more important UN meetings planned before a crunch conference in Copenhagen in December. There, officials will attempt to hammer out an accord to replace the Kyoto protocol, whose main provisions expire in 2012.
Much of the two-week meeting in Bonn that ended on Friday was, of necessity, taken up with bureaucratic technicalities, which must be painstakingly sorted through before an agreement can be forged.
China has reinforced the sense of discord by calling on developed countries to cut their emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 – far more than any plan to do – and to give 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent of their gross domestic product in assistance to the developing world.
The lack of progress so far on the big issues – the extent to which rich countries will cut emissions, the commitments poor countries will make and how these will be funded – was underlined this week when Japan unveiled a plan to cut its emissions by 8 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 – a level only 2 per cent below Tokyo’s commitment under the 1997 Kyoto protocol.
Kim Carstensen, leader of the climate initiative at the green campaigning group WWF, called Japan “dangerously lacking any level of ambition”.
“This is a great shame, and sets the wrong tone for the negotiations,” he said. “[It] makes reaching a good deal even harder.”
However, the positions adopted by Japan and China are privately viewed by officials from other leading countries as posturing. “There are six months to go. We are still at the stage of people setting out their initial positions,” said one.
By this analysis, the announcements suggest many of the key players plan to keep their best bargaining chips for the later stages of the UN talks.
For rich countries, those chips are – in order of importance – money, technology and the extent to which they will cut their emissions.
None of the big developed countries has yet set out how much money they will provide to help poor countries cut emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Most, including the US and the European Union, have laid out their plans for emissions cuts. The US will, broadly speaking, return to 1990 emissions levels by 2020, while the EU will cut its emissions by 20 per cent compared with 1990 levels by 2020, or by 30 per cent if other countries participate.
Emerging economies, led by China and India, are holding out for funds and “technology transfer”.
In return for funding, and the possibility of a global carbon trading mechanism that would benefit emerging economies, rich countries want legally binding commitments from developing countries that they will “deviate from business as usual”. That is, curb their emissions so they do not reach the levels expected if economic growth continues along a high-carbon path.
Such commitments could take the form of “national action plans” whereby developing nations undertake to increase renewable energy generation and improve energy efficiency.
China, India and others have already started drawing up such plans.
“China does not need to take the same actions that developed countries are taking, but it does need to take significant action. When it comes to climate change, China must be part of the solution,” David Sandalow, US assistant secretary of energy, told the Beijing Energy Club this week.
For now, and for the months to come, all eyes are on China.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009