Hothouse
Nov 10th
2000
Climate change
presents real risks for the future of mankind. Unfortunately, the countries
meeting in the Netherlands to discuss how to tackle global warming are deeply
divided
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A GULF between Europe and America will have to be closed if an international conference on global warming is to succeed in hammering out an agreement on how to cut greenhouse gases. The two-week gathering of representatives from 180 countries, which began in The Hague on November 13th, has been told that global warning is real and that the role mankind is playing in it is more significant than scientists had thought just five years ago. By November 16th the two sides were already at loggerheads with Europe claiming that America is not going far enough to clean up its pollution.
A report by the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the earth may warm up by as much as six degrees Celsius within a century, which is double previous estimates. This means ocean levels could rise by more than 50cm, which would threaten many islands and large swathes of coastal areas in China, South-East Asia and Africa. The report makes the launch of the Kyoto Protocol even more pressing. This is a UN-brokered treaty signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, that commits the rich countries of the world to binding cuts in their emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are usually a by-product of burning fossil fuels. The developed countries agreed to cut their emissions by a collective average of 5% below their levels in 1990 by 2008-2012.
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The Hague summit will attempt to establish how those reductions will be achieved. The most difficult problem will be bringing together Europe and America. The European Union says it wants industrialised countries to put most of their efforts into practical measures to cut gaseous emissions by reforming energy and transport policies. America, which will have to slash its emissions by 20-30% from its likely levels at the end of the decade (based on current trends) if it is to meet its Kyoto targets, wants more “flexibility mechanisms”, such as the trading of emissions rights among and within countries. This should lower the cost of compliance. While American negotiators have sought to ease European concerns, the EU has rejected their position. Ministers will try to reach some sort of compromise in the final stages of the meeting. The key discussions will turn on the following points:
Emissions trading: In principle, all the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol agree that it is a good idea to allow countries to trade permits which cover the amount of emissions that will be allowed. This would allocate costs more efficiently, so that cuts can be made wherever in the world they are cheapest.
Carbon sinks: Forests and other plantations can be used to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. These carbon sinks, claim their advocates, should count towards reducing a country’s net emissions. In general, scientists agree that carbon sinks are important, but their properties are not well understood and they are difficult to define and measure. New scientific evidence also suggests they may not be as reliable at storing carbon as previously thought.
Compliance: Any complex treaty is not worth the paper it is written on unless there is a clear regime of compliance. As with the other issues, the EU is arguing for a harsher line than the United States by insisting on economic sanctions against countries which fail to meet their emission-reduction targets. The Americans, although they accept the need for credible enforcement, do not want financial penalties.
Into the atmosphere
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The EU will try to claim the high ground by arguing that the lion’s share of emission cuts should not be made by countries trading or “sinking” their way towards their targets. The implication is that cuts achieved through market mechanisms or the clever use of carbon sinks, are somehow inferior or immoral. Yet it does not matter to the atmosphere where cuts are made. America’s stance is not beyond reproach either: its negotiators know that the American Congress will not accept any international agreement that is seen to be a burden on the economy, which is why carbon sinks and trading are reckoned to be the best way to lower costs of compliance. American officials also know that it is highly unlikely that the United States will meet its target, and so want to avoid the cost and humiliation of financial penalties. Making agreement even more difficult is the uncertainty over who will become America’s president and hence exactly what the future policy of the world’s biggest economy will be.
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