Environmentalists decry gas emission targets

Samisoni Pareti  


With the Copenhagen summit only five months away, the Pacific has joined other regions of the world in the rush to have a new treaty on climate change adopted by then.
Some progress was made by countries who are members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at their meeting in Bonn, Germany, on June 1-12.
That is if you termed the amalgamation of positions and changes to the proposed treaty’s text by members that had swelled the document size to  200 odd pages or so, progress.
Successor treaty
But with the expectation that the Copenhagen meeting in December will see the signing into a treaty of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by UNFCCC members, the outcome of the Bonn meeting to Espen Ronneberg is development nevertheless. He is the climate change adviser at the Samoa-based Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and in that capacity, adviser as well to AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States) of which SPREP members in the Pacific are all members.
“The text that emerged from the Bonn meeting is a compendium of positions and textual proposals,” Ronneberg said in response to our emailed questions.
“It is a complicated process to analyse the text and to seek to narrow down the options and remove duplications.
“AOSIS is working hard to come up with a common view on the text, and will be meeting in Grenada in July with this in mind.
“They will go through the text and see what parts correspond to [our] basic position…and also to note what parts would not be acceptable.
“This will take some time and further negotiating sessions have been agreed, hopefully giving sufficient space for parties to reach an agreement.
“While there is a lot of work ahead, it is not the time for pessimism. We just have to do our best to ensure the agreements reached in Copenhagen put us on a more secure path to avoid dangerous climate change.”
Civil society observers in Bonn were not as optimistic as Ronneberg.
WWF climate change expert Tasneem Essop decried what she said was the lack of new ideas on the table by negotiating countries, adding that the negotiating position between industrialised countries and non-industrialised ones seemed to be increasing.
“Everyone is just interested in building their own fortresses,” Essop told journalists covering the Bonn negotiations last month.
“Japan’s announcement that it intends to cut gas emission by only 8% below 1990 levels is a real trust killer.
“Political commitments now have to meet the rhetoric. We need to set ambitious emission reduction targets and we need to set those targets fast.”
Like WWF, Greenpeace wants industrialised countries especially to step up their emission reduction targets.
It noted that while Japan’s targets are too little, New Zealand has yet to make any commitment to a target, Canada’s emissions are likely to increase, Australia says it will only act if others do and the United States is dragging its feet with a “paltry” 4% cut.
“To have any chance of staying below a global temperature rise of two degrees, these countries must make combined cuts of 40% by 2020 and virtually eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” said a Greenpeace statement released during the Bonn negotiations.
“To-date, the targets they have announced could see the world heading towards a three degree average global temperature rise, or more, which would wreak havoc on the climate.”
For small islands states of the Pacific, Ronneberg believes attending such negotiations—although complex and intense—are crucial.
It is the only forum where their unique concerns as frontline states in any dangerous climate change are heard and considered.
“The Pacific needs to remain engaged with the process, they need to make their concerns heard,” Ronneberg told SPREP’s associate media and publications officer Nannette Wontoon.
“For example, the concern that the resources are available for national level works such as capacity building and awareness-raising.
“The view expressed from the Pacific was that the resources are not sufficient so this point needed to be made by them.
“In order to do so, they have to be present in meetings where necessary to make changes to the decisions of the partners.
“They also need to be present in order to ensure that whatever comes out of Copenhagen does address the adaptation needs of the region and that it also stresses the need for ambitious targets for emission reductions.”
Ambitious targets
In fact a Pacific islands state went further than merely sending representatives to the Bonn negotiations last June.
Tuvalu was only one of a handful of countries that turned up with a draft Copenhagen treaty. Others included Australia, as well as a draft put together by non-governmental pressure groups.
ISLANDS BUSINESS was unable to sight a copy of Tuvalu’s proposal by press time. But Ronneberg who had seen it said the document contained many of the concerns of AOSIS.
“But it should be noted that even during the Bonn meetings, the Tuvalu delegation indicated there were some further refinements they had not considered but would have included if given time.
“Many suggestions were offered by other AOSIS members, so I think there is scope to work with Tuvalu on this.
“The Tuvalu proposal also serves as a place marker for one type of outcome from Copenhagen, and as such was welcomed by AOSIS.
“It can serve as a useful basis for AOSIS to work on during its meeting in July.
“This would mirror the process of the earlier AOSIS protocol proposal, which was provided as a first draft by Nauru, and then adjusted and modified by a group of experts until all AOSIS members signed off on it.”
With the Bonn negotiations over, three more UNFCCC sessions are planned before Copenhagen in December.
Not included in this is the special session on climate change that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is convening in September for world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.