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  BBC 10 Dec 05
Last-minute climate deals reached

Ministers at the climate change conference in Montreal have made a series of breakthroughs in plans to combat global warming.

On the conference's last day, Kyoto Protocol signatories agreed to extend the treaty on emissions reductions beyond its 2012 deadline.

And a broader group of countries including the US agreed to non-binding talks on long-term measures. The US had refused to accept any deal leading to commitments to cuts.

Earlier, former President Bill Clinton said the US approach was "flat wrong". After Mr Clinton's remarks - which were warmly received - the official US team appeared to shift its position.

'Map for the future'

The BBC's Tim Hirsch in Montreal says the deal was finally agreed in a mood of some euphoria after a last-minute procedural objection by the Russians held up the talks for several hours.

Formal talks can now begin over the precise targets which will be set when the first phase of the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.

Our correspondent says that, crucially, it sets the scene for discussing how large developing countries like India and China could be brought into the system of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion, who is hosting the conference, described the agreement as "a map for the future, the Montreal Action Plan, the MAP".

Last week delegates finalised a rule book for Kyoto, formally making it fully operational after years of negotiation and ratification. The 1997 treaty commits industrialised countries to cut their combined carbon emissions to 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

'Meet and surpass'

The US appears to have been stung by negative coverage in the US media after it walked out in protest at Canadian attempts to get it to accept mandatory targets, as well as by Mr Clinton's strong comments , our correspondent says.

Mr Clinton attacked a central plank of the Bush administration's resistance to targets for cutting emissions - that it would harm the US economy.

If the US "had a serious, disciplined effort to apply on a large scale existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies... we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, our economies," he said.

Global warming and melting ice, he suggested, could lead to a future climate conference in Canada being held on "a raft somewhere".

The US has still not budged on its opposition to the Kyoto treaty, and faced heavy criticism for its stance.

Jennifer Morgan, climate-change expert for environmental group WWF, said US negotiator Harlan Watson's decision to leave the talks overnight showed "just how willing the US administration is to walk away from a healthy planet and its responsibilities".

The US rejected the criticism. "If you want to talk about global consciousness, I'd say there's one country that is focused on action... dialogue... co-operation and... helping the developing world, and that's the United States," said state department spokesman Adam Ereli in Washington.

Despite the row, environmentalists said the conference had been in most respects a success, reaching agreements on how to quantify gas emissions and how to penalise nations for failing to meet Kyoto targets.

Channel NewsAsia 11 Dec 05
Kyoto's backers overjoyed at outcome of UN talks

MONTREAL : Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol exulted Saturday after the UN's climate-change pact survived yet another dance with death and even emerged strengthened from the ordeal.

The meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to launch negotiations on extending Kyoto beyond 2012, when its current commitments for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions expire.

That was complemented by a roster of important decisions that completed the last remaining pieces of the treaty institutional machinery.

Adding the cherry on the cake was an agreement to launch a "dialogue" under the UNFCCC on long-term emissions cuts with the United States, the world's biggest carbon polluter and Kyoto holdout, and with developing countries.

"Now humanity is equipped to face the worst ecological dangers that it has to face in this century," declared the conference's chairman, Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion.

The deal came after a night of anger and arm-twisting in which the United States backed down in its opposition to the "dialogue" and Russia was faced down in a last-minute demand that, if conceded, would have destroyed the conference and possibly the Kyoto process as well.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called the UN climate summit "successful" and said it gave new momentum to international efforts to address global warming.

"Today marks a critical and important point," Martin said. "The successful conclusion of the 11th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC and the first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol gives new momentum to taking action on what is clearly a significant environmental challenge for all people of the world and for future generations."

The outcome was greeted with joy by the European Union (EU), which has dived in several times to save Kyoto over the past four years.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the agreement was only a beginning, "but it is important and demonstrates why it is always worth engaging with America and the rest of the world."

British Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett, whose country is current EU chair, added the Montreal meeting would give an "essential signal" of support for the fledgling international market for trading in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The trading system was launched under Kyoto's format, in which legally-binding limits on CO2 levels are used to drive market incentives for reducing the pollution.

European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: "Not only did we successfully implement and improve the Kyoto Protocol, more importantly we gave it a future."

Green groups poured vitriol over two familiar foes at the Montreal talks -- the United States and Russia, which have been accused of trying to wreck every climate-change talks for the past four years.

"As expected, the Bush administration attempted to derail the process, at one point even walking out of the negotiations, but the rest of the world showed a will to move ahead regardless," Greenpeace International's Bill Hare said.

"For once, the Bush administration was forced back to the table and into agreement with the international community."

For the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the outcome "displayed the groundswell of support for real climate action... the attempt by the US, and later Russia, to scupper the talks failed when a broad coalition including major developing countries, Japan, Canada and the EU, rebuffed."

"Kyoto thrives in Montreal, despite (a) last-minute game of Russian roulette," Friends of the Earth International said in a press release.

Elation at Kyoto's latest great escape mixed, however, with prudent reminders that the next few years will be fraught with challenges.

Kyoto countries next year will have to sketch the outlines for the post-2012 negotiations -- another political minefield -- and industrialised nations that have ratified the treaty must prove their good faith by meeting their own emissions pledges, said WWF's Jennifer Morgan. - AFP /ct

Channel NewsAsia 10 Dec 05
UN conference breathes life into Kyoto Protocol, builds bridges with US

MONTREAL - A landmark UN conference agreed Saturday to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and launch a dialogue between Kyoto members and the United States on long-term action on greenhouse gases.

"We have completed our Montreal marathon, although the road before us remains so long. We are going to reconcile humanity with its planet," Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion said as he brought down the gavel on a meeting high on drama, and long on exhaustion.

The meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was tasked with charting the next steps in tackling the emissions from fossil fuel gases that scientists say are trapping heat from the Sun and disrupting Earth's fragile climate system.

After often-bitter negotiations, members of the Kyoto Protocol agreed to start talks on how to cut their emissions beyond 2012, when the treaty's present "commitment period" expires.

That agreement was a crucial show of support for a treaty that has been in deep trouble since March 2001 when the United States, the world's biggest carbon polluter, walked away from it.

Australia is only other industrialised country that has refused to ratify Kyoto.

The accord also gave a powerful boost to the fledgling market in carbon emissions, a key mechanism set up under Kyoto to encourage cuts. The market has been beset by fears that Kyoto could die after 2012.

"Kyoto is alive and kicking," declared European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

The Montreal agreement also built a bridge between the Kyoto members and the United States by agreeing to a "dialogue" on how to make long-term cuts in greenhouse gas pollution.

The dialogue is vaguely worded and, in deference to the United States, has no binding obligations or specific goals. But, if it works, it could break US isolationism on climate change.

Green campaigners hope that by involving the United States more closely in a multilateral process, it will be easier for Washington to come back into the Kyoto fold after US President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009, they hope.

Greenhouse gases are the carbon by-product of burning oil, gas and coal. Billions of tonnes are released into the air each year, trapping heat from the Sun and causing what scientists say are early signs of climate change -- disruption of rainfall patterns, melting glaciers and polar sea ice and, possibly, the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the worst on record.

Even if all the present Kyoto goals are met, industrialised countries will have trimmed output of greenhouse gases by just one or two percent by 2012 as compared to a 1990 benchmark.

Tackling the problem will thus require a broader, longer-term approach, bringing in the United States, the world's No. 1 polluter, as well as China, which is the second biggest contributor to greenhouse gases, and maybe Brazil and India too.

This is politically very tough, not just because of Bush's fierce opposition to the Kyoto format because of the cost for the oil-dependent US economy.

Developing countries at present lie outside the requirement to make specific cuts in emissions. They argue that rich countries are most to blame for global warming because of their unbridled burning of carbon fuels in the 20th century.

Another task will be switch economies from dirty fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. That is the biggest challenge of all, because oil, gas and coal have a tight grip on the world's energy market, enjoying a big price advantage and political clout over new, cleaner alternatives such as solar, wind, hydrogen and biofuels.

The Montreal meeting, gathering 8,700 ministers, senior officials, green campaigners, scientists and businessmen, was to have ended late Friday.

But it ended at dawn on Saturday after the United States battled on the "dialogue" question and Russia raised a last-minute roadblock on launching the post-2012 Kyoto talks. - AFP/ir
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