As the row on emission cuts to curb climate change continued at the climate change talks in Bangkok this week, South Africa took a tough stand against developed nations that wanted to revamp the Kyoto agreement.
South Africa was one of the nations that walked out of the negotiations late on Tuesday afternoon to voice their protest at the direction rich countries wanted to steer the climate change negotiations. The South African delegation has also been airing their disappointment widely with well directed criticism at rich countries.
Time is running out for negotiating a binding, inclusive climate change treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of the year.
The world would have to commit to significant cuts in carbon emissions in Copenhagen to keep the earth’s rise in temperature beneath two degrees. Scientists have warned of horrific natural disasters that would claim millions of lives and cost trillions of rands if the world does not act now and curb its emissions.
The talks in Bangkok are the second last time nations gathered to prepare a platform for a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen that would add to the current Kyoto Protocol. The protocol caps rich countries’ emissions in an attempt to fight climate change.
But now developed countries, led by the United States, want to leave Kyoto by the wayside and negotiate a totally new treaty separate from it, a move that has angered developing countries such as South Africa, China and India. The US is not a member of Kyoto.
The European Union (EU) has indicated that they support the US’s move, and that the new treaty would take the best out of Kyoto and add it to a new treaty. Other rich countries like Canada and Australia have also welcomed the suggestion.
The G77 plus China, the biggest voice of the developing world that includes South Africa, have been left flabbergasted by the new proposals and Yu Qingtai, China’s special envoy for climate change, has been very vocal against it.
”They are killing Kyoto,” he said.
According to the Bali Plan, negotiated two years ago, there are two tracks in the climate change negotiations — one for the extension of the Kyoto Protocol into a second term and one for a new treaty in Copenhagen. What the rich countries are attempting with their proposal is to force the Kyoto track into the new treaty track and get rid of the bits they don’t like.
One of South Africa’s main climate negotiators, Joanne Yawitch, said it was unacceptable for rich countries to simply start cutting and pasting.
Qingtai said ditching Kyoto was like getting rid of a bicycle’s one wheel and still expecting it to move.”
”You cannot go forward if the wheels fall of,” he said.
South African lead negotiator Alf Wills, speaking on behalf of the G77, told reporters the G77 was extremely concerned that the new proposal was an attempt by developed countries to prevent taking on new targets in the Kyoto Protocol’s second commitment period.
The controversial Kyoto Protocol instructs rich countries to limit their emissions of greenhouse gasses as they are historically responsible for the most emissions. The treaty binds 37 industrialised nations to cut emission targets during its 2008-12 first commitment period. The new proposal would end Kyoto after its first commitment period and not take it into a second one.
Developing countries were excluded from Kyoto originally because committing to emission targets would jeopardise their economies. The United States did not ratify the protocol, because the Bush administration was unhappy that developing countries like India and China were excluded.
But it is widely believed that the Republicans used the exclusion of China as an excuse to shy away from any action to cut emissions during the first Kyoto period..
When president Barack Obama took over there was a sense of optimism that the US would take a leading role to combat climate change. But this week the US was once again seen as a stumbling block.
And US climate envoys are already talking about a Copenhagen Plus, indicating that a deal at Copenhagen would not be possible and that they needed more time.
Obama’s main energy adviser, Carol Browner, said in Washington that the current administration did not expect the Senate to vote on a climate change bill before Copenhagen.
United Nations Foundation president Timothy Wirth also said in New York he did not expect any concrete agreements to come out of Copenhagen with the US’s reluctance to commit at the moment.
”We’re not to do that, we cannot force people to commit,” he said pertaining to the US commitment. He said the US is really not yet ready to set their targets.
The European Commission’s director-general of environment and EU negotiator, Karl Falkenberg, defended the EU’s move to cosy up to the US by ditching Kyoto. He said that Kyoto had all the signs of being legally binding internationally, but that emissions have actually increased since it started functioning.
The EU is desperate to include the US in a new treaty and its ”attack” on the Kyoto protocol is an attempt to warm up to the Americans and include them in the expected Copenhagen treaty. The Europeans do not want a Kyoto repeat where the Americans refused to ratify.
Negotiators will return to their countries after Friday to discuss the proposals being aired at Bangkok and to get a new political mandate for the last round of talks in Barcelona, before the big treaty talks in Copenhagen.
Despite the row, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer believes that Bangkok has made progress, and that delegates have moved on issues such as technology transfer and help for developing countries to adapt to climate change. He believed that the Kyoto protocol should be kept at this stage.
At a press briefing he used the analogy of owning shoes. The world only had one pair of shoes to walk with at the moment, Kyoto, and it would be foolish to get rid of it, he said.