With climate discussions in a fragile state since the chaotic 2009 Copenhagen Summit, Raul Estrada – the Argentine ex-diplomat who steered the historic 1997 conference which yielded Kyoto’s framework – says political and economic problems at home are preventing many countries from tackling climate change with the urgency it needed. Meanwhile, the Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialised nations formally joined a coalition that is working to reduce emissions of short-lived global warming pollutants. Read More

By Anthony Lucas and Mariette le Roux  for AFP  (23 May 2012):

BONN — UN climate talks are going nowhere, as politicians dither or bicker while the pace of warming dangerously speeds up, one of the architects of the Kyoto Protocol told AFP.

“It seems to me that negotiations are returning to square one,” said Raul Estrada, the “father” of the world’s only treaty to specify curbs in greenhouse gases, as the first talks for a new global pact took place in Bonn.

In a telephone interview from Buenos Aires this week, Estrada defended his beleaguered accord and said efforts to engineer a replacement were in trouble.

“We are throwing the dice and then we advance three or four places. Then you throw again and you go back. This is the exercise on climate,” said the Argentine ex-diplomat who steered the historic 1997 conference which yielded Kyoto’s framework.

Kyoto binds 37 rich nations to reducing carbon emissions but does not have any targeted commitments for poor economies.

It is a format that critics say is hopelessly out of date today, given that China, India and Brazil are now giant emitters.

Kyoto’s first roster of pledges expires at the end of the year. Renewing it is one of several keys to unlocking a wider deal to be completed by 2015 and take effect by 2020.

Kyoto “is an excellent source of experience for any successor treaty,” Estrada said.

He added he had “serious concerns” about the 2020 negotiations launched last December in South Africa under the 194-party UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Senior officials are meeting in Bonn for the first round of talks to follow up the so-called Durban Platform. The 11-day parlay runs until Friday.

“There is very little science in the discussion, mostly political interests or political arguments trying to use things that were decided 20 or 30 years ago,” Estrada said.

With climate discussions in a fragile state since the chaotic 2009 Copenhagen Summit, Estrada said political and economic problems at home were preventing many countries from tackling climate change with the urgency it needed.

New research recently predicted Earth’s temperature rising by as much as five degrees Celsius (9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels on current pledges, instead of the 2 C (3.6 F) limit targeted under the UNFCCC banner.

He pointed the finger at countries that had failed to live up to their Kyoto undertakings.

“I’m frustrated by those governments with whom we adopted the protocol unanimously in Kyoto, not by consensus but unanimously, and later didn’t ratify it like the USA or, having ratified the protocol, now they don’t comply with it, like Canada and Italy,” said Estrada.

Kyoto, which came into force in 2005, envisioned a five-percent reduction of warming gas emissions by rich countries by 2012 from 1990 levels.

Globally, though, emissions have leapt to ever greater heights, driven especially by emerging giants which are burning coal to power their growth.

The United States signed but did not ratify the accord, while Russia and Japan have said they did not intend to sign up after Kyoto expires this year.

Canada has become the only country to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, and recently said it would not achieve the target of reducing emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

Estrada said the new 2020 pact must include emission targets not only for countries but for industrial sectors, too — “the amount of carbon you are going to emit by ton of iron or steel or 1,000 megawatts or something like that.”

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/afp/

B y Andrew Freedman on 23 May 2012

Climate Central

The Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialised nations formally joined a coalition that is working to reduce emissions of short-lived global warming pollutants. The action took place during the G-8 summit meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in northwest Maryland, which served as the annual gathering for the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK, and the US.

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition for Reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, which was formed in mid-February, is now made up of 18 members in the developing and developed world. The coalition’s goal is to cut emissions of climate warming pollution that acts on shorter timescales than carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

Pollutants like black carbon, methane, and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) help trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere, warming the planet. Unlike CO2, though, they only remain in the atmosphere for a short time period, from days to weeks, in the case of black carbon, to about a decade for methane. By contrast, CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for a century or more.

In a fact sheet released on May 19, G-8 members said the reduction of short-lived global warming pollutants would “enhance our collective ambition in addressing climate change by complementing efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.”

Recent studies have identified the potential benefits of tackling short-lived global warming agents in addition to the long-lived pollutants. In a study published in January in the journal Science, researchers found that cutting black carbon emissions would reduce warming in the Himalayas and the Arctic during the next 30 years by as much as two-thirds, and would even help maintain the current South Asian monsoon. Black carbon, also known as soot, warms the air by absorbing radiation from the sun, and when it lands on snow and ice it darkens the surface, causing more melting. Another assessment from the UN Environment Programme also found major benefits to reducing emissions of short-lived greenhouse gases.

Black carbon also harms public health, especially in developing countries, where wood, dung and other fuels that emit soot when burned are used for cooking. Implementing soot-reduction policies would avoid 373,000 premature deaths each year in India and China alone.

“The President’s announcement puts the short-lived climate pollutant strategy where it belongs — firmly in the hands of the leaders of the world’s largest economies,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development in Washington.

The G8 leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to limit global warming to less than 2°C, or 3.6°F, above pre-industrial levels. This goal, though, is looking less and less achievable, according to recent studies. Climate negotiators meeting in Bonn, Germany, this week are working to hammer out details of a process that is intended to result in a new global climate treaty by 2015, which would go into effect by 2020. However, emissions reduction pledges are still running well short of what would be needed to achieve the 2°C target.

Source: www.climatecentral.org.