At UN talks, Kyoto Protocol hangs in the balance

BONN — The fate of the only international agreement that sets binding targets for curbing greenhouse gases is hanging by a thread, say veteran watchers of the UN talks unfolding here.Failure to prolong the Kyoto Protocol's roster of pledges beyond 2012 would mark a perilous new low for climate negotiations and their UN architecture, set down by the 1992 Rio summit, they say."The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol is a plausible scenario," said Elliot Diringer, vice president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based thinktank."Parties are facing a choice of limited progress or no progress. If they opt for the latter, it will leave the process in a shambles."New talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), ending in Bonn on Friday, aim at building consensus for the 194-nation forum's next high-level meeting, running November 28-December 9 in Durban, South Africa.Agreed in skeletal form in 1997 and implemented in 2005 after agonising talks over its rulebook, Kyoto commits 37 advanced economies to trim six greenhouse gases by an overall five percent by a 2008-2012 timeframe compared to 1990.Overstepping a national target carries a penalty in lower emissions in the next commitment period. Any shortfall carries over to the second pledge and is multiplied by 30 percent.Washington was one of the chief architects of the protocol but never ratified the treaty.Former president George W. Bush said Kyoto was fatally flawed because it does not require developing giants, already major polluters, to take on similar constraints.European countries are generally on track for their emissions reductions, but Canada is poised to miss its target by a wide margin.At the same time, emissions by China, India, Indonesia and Brazil have rocketed -- nations bound by Kyoto account for less than 30 percent of global CO2 emissions, which hit record levels in 2010.Even so, the protocol exerts tremendous force among poorer countries, which say it enshrines the responsibility of rich nations for unl

Add comment

Nick
Content

Submit