Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Environmentalists await new US government for climate leadership (4:04 p.m.)
BANGKOK, Thailand - The U.S. government insists it is deeply engaged in talks started this week on the world's next climate pact, but other negotiators are already looking ahead to the next administration - and wondering what to expect.
Nations have less than two years to piece together a deal that scientists say is needed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and stop the planet's temperatures from rising so high they trigger an environmental disaster.
The high-stakes negotiations that began Monday in Thailand, however, are complicated by the coming presidential election in the United States.
Crucial details - such as how much Washington is willing to cut its emissions - can't be fully discussed until a new president takes office next year, slowing action on a final deal, some negotiators say. And even though all three candidates support emissions caps, it's far from certain what a new administration's negotiating stance will be.
"The nature of the U.S.'s commitment ... is unclear, and I suspect we're not going to get a clear signal from the U.S. until after the next election," said Ian Fry, a representative for the island nation of Tuvalu, which faces danger from rising sea-levels caused by global warming.
"The uncertainty is troubling, particularly for highly vulnerable countries, like small island states," he added.
The world's nations agreed in a massive conference in Bali late last year to conclude a pact by December 2009. The agreement would succeed the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol warming agreement, which expires in 2012.
While most agree urgent action is needed, the talks are rife with divisions over how to go about it - and who should make the first move.
Developing countries demand the industrialized world make the first major commitments to rein in emissions. The European Union has pledged specific cuts, but the United States and others say they first need guaranteed commitments by leading developing nations like China and India to limit pollution.
President George W. Bush has rejected the 1997 Kyoto global warming pact, arguing it would hurt the economy and was unfair because developing countries weren't required to cut emissions. The agreement committed 37 wealthy nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Harlan Watson, the head of the U.S. delegation in Bangkok, insisted the administration was fully involved in the negotiations for the new pact.
Congress and leading U.S. presidential candidates have shown a willingness to cap emissions. But Watson said the U.S. still wants commitments from major developing nations as well, no matter who was in the White House.
So far at Bangkok, however, he has limited his public statements to procedural issues, such as mapping out a timeline for subsequent talks.
"At this point in the process, there's no enthusiasm for talking" about specific targets, he said. Later he added: "We don't want to do anything that's going to cut off the next administration's options."
Indeed, the talks in Thailand were primarily focused on the unglamorous work of deciding agenda items, though delegates were being even less ambitious on that score than some expected. Talks on Wednesday, for example, were based on a draft schedule that only addressed discussions for the rest of this year, leaving the 2009 agenda to be decided later.
U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer acknowledged that one of the toughest parts of the haggling ahead - on how much industrialized countries will cut their gas emissions - would best be discussed with a new U.S. administration.
But he suggested that also meshed with the natural tendency in such talks to leave the most contentious issues for last.
"It's a big question whether you can really resolve that very difficult political issue in the next year, or whether it makes more sense to leave it for later," he said, adding that negotiating concrete targets now would be akin to discussing marriage on a first date.
The final goal of the talks will be a complex document to include emissions reduction commitments by industrialized countries, measures by developing countries, and financing and technology transfer to help them control emissions and adapt to the effects of rising temperatures.
The United States, as the world's largest economy and one of two leading emitters with China, is a major player. Negotiators agree any new pact is doomed unless Washington joins.
Environmentalists said the high interest in combating global warming in Congress and the presence in Bangkok of U.S. Senate staffers suggested the United States would take a much more active role once a new president is in office.
In that context, the preparatory work being done in Bangkok was valuable, they said.
"It would be better if you had active engagement by the essential country," said David Doniger, of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But you can set the table so that action can be taken quickly when the U.S. is ready to move." (AP) |
