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World News Story

05 July 2009 00:17 BST

After Kyoto: Planet's future on the line

The latest round of international climate change talks are beginning today, with environmentalists again biting their nails as vital discussions on the planet's future get underway.

Negotiators in Poznan, Poland, face a tough challenge. Their task is truly enormous: to arrange how the world's countries will cut carbon emissions at a rate fast enough to prevent global warming causing catastrophic damage.

There's no blank sheet to start off the talks. The weight of history hangs over the dispute between developed and developing countries over who should make the most effort.

In short, the argument goes, developed countries got away with a century of industrialisation using fossil fuels. So it's unfair to ask developing countries like China, whose primary goal is to lift as many of its population out of poverty as possible, to slow this process down.

The flip side of the coin is that developed countries say they did not know about the impact their polluting actions would have.

As far as possible both sides need to put these tensions behind them. It seems clear, however, that the onus is on developed countries to provide leadership on how to divide up the pain of emissions cuts by assuming their fair share.

Even once this conclusion is reached, however, working out what exactly is 'fair' remains very difficult.

Picking up the tab

Charity Christian Aid has backed the EcoEquity campaign in its proposed answer. Greenhouse development rights (GDRs) work from a scientific basis to calculate who should assume most of the climate change tab.

They seek to combine each country's responsibility for the changes needed to promote rapid global decarbonisation and its capacity to pay for them.

The argument is summed up by Tom Athanasiou in Bad Deal for the Planet, a report by the NGO International Rivers.

"It's no accident that greenhouse development rights come, in the end, to a progressive global tax," he writes.

"While it's quite impossible to avoid the conclusion that, if we indeed wish to escape the climate trap, the wealthy must pay to make this possible, it's equally clear that such payment cannot simply be seen as a subsidy paid by rich nations to developing ones."

The result is equality – meaning even the poorest countries have to contribute something to the process.

Under GDRs, income per capita is used alongside a global poverty threshold which discounts all those living on less than $9,000 (£5,865) a year.

As a result only one per cent of India's population are culpable, compared to over 90 per cent of Americans.

In terms of global 'obligation', therefore, the US has about 36 per cent while China has three per cent and India around 0.01 per cent.

Eliot Whittington of Christian Aid gave GDRs his backing. "The purpose is fairness – GDRs show those who should take on the biggest share of the bill," he summed up.

The question now is whether the international community will accept the GDRs' recommendations as they decide how to move forward on climate change. The next two weeks will be crucial in deciding this.

'Hit the ground running'

At stake is a decision about what will succeed the protocols agreed at the 1997 meeting of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). These were established in Kyoto to run for the four years from 2008.

Last year's UNFCCC meeting in Bali began the work. After days of intensive negotiations and a last-minute backdown by the US delegation it was finally agreed that talks would take place on how to succeed Kyoto's protocols come 2012.

The 2008 meeting in Poland will be all about setting the agenda for Copenhagen in 2009, when the final agreement for post-Kyoto cuts will be set.

"We need to make sure we come out of Poznan ready to hit the negotiations running in 2009," Pete Lockley of WWF-UK explained.

"You need strong mandates for the chairs of the different negotiating tracks and the chair's texts need to be comprehensive."

Unfortunately for EcoEquity most expect GDRs will only play a limited role, as reflected by WWF's reluctance to formally sign up to them.

It has been calling for much tougher targets from developed countries but remains distant from a formal commitment to GDRs.

"Equity is absolutely key at the negotiations," Mr Lockley said.

"We think it's an interesting way of reframing the debate and casting into perspective what the relative capabilities and responsibilities of the different parties are."

For many lobby groups even reframing the debate is seen as a victory to be proud of.

Antony Froggatt of Chatham House described them as "something you can't get away from".

"Many different people want to raise this question," he said, before pointing out that other factors like the energy-supply mix, state development in terms of technology and natural resources availability all need taking into account.

Summing up, Mr Froggatt said: "It needs to be factored into consideration in terms of the whole development issue."

Cutting the cord

So if the GDRs won't be adhered to, what can we expect from Poznan?

Unfortunately the outcomes are difficult to predict because of other climate change-related developments occurring in the same fortnight.

Today Lord Turner publishes his recommendations on the climate change bill.

The big question rests on what he will propose for Britain's emissions cuts by 2020. The UK government recently committed itself to 80 per cent reductions by 2050 but, Mr Lockley said, it's what you plan to do in the next political cycle that negotiators really take notice of.

"Forty per cent for us is a minimum," he commented. The UK has already achieved a 21 per cent reduction, without trying. Now there is a need to accelerate.

There is a tension when it comes to how much of this percentage should be cuts made at home – as opposed to those cuts financed in developing countries. WWF wants ten or 15 per cent being imported credits, in addition to the 40 per cent figure at home.

"There were some easy wins early on but at the same time we weren't really trying. We would expect to go further," Mr Lockley added.

On December 4th and 5th comes the next challenge which will influence negotiators' thinking at Poznan – the EU's emission-cutting plans.

In spring 2007 all its heads of government agreed to undertake a unilateral 20 per cent cut by 2020, rising to 30 per cent if a global deal is reached.

The package on achieving this has been working its way through the EU institutions after being unveiled in January this year.

It includes a commitment to achieve 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2002; amendments to the emissions trading scheme; and provisions for carbon capture and storage.

This month it will be up to environmental ministers, on December 4th and 5th, and heads of state on December 11th and 12th to thrash out the deal and produce a strong package.

"Obama factor"

Failure to do so would be devastating for the UNFCCC reports, WWF's climate change policy officer Kirsty Clough believes.

"It's such a sensitive time for it not to come out with something very ambitious," she warned. "Without really vigorous emission reduction targets within Europe itself, it's not going to bring the rest of the world on board."

There are other factors. The general political mood will have a huge impact; China will be diplomatically frosty after cancelling last week's scheduled EU summit because of French president Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Then, finally, there's the Obama factor. The president-elect will be conspicuously absent from Poznan, although failed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will be present. "We mustn't let governments off the hook in just saying we're sitting around Poznan waiting around [Barack] Obama," Mr Lockley pressed.

Mr Obama's manifesto included a commitment to the 80 per cent cut by 2050 and the signals are good, but – with all White House administrations – you can never be sure until pen hits paper.

The result of all this are climate change negotiations which are fractious, complicated and surprisingly fickle.

By chance a new American president, the final talks on an EU deal and Britain's contribution are all in the mix as Poznan convenes.

These complications are not news to those who have closely followed developments for many years and this writer got little sympathy while complaining about the tangled mess that makes up the world's climate change talks.

Mr Froggatt listened carefully before shrugging his shoulders.

"It's not just Poznan but the whole run-up to Copenhagen – this is an all-encompassing issue that engages lots of different factors," he said.

"That's just the way it is. Nobody expected it to be easy."

Alex Stevenson