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  PlanetArk 4 Sep 07
Climate Change a Hot Topic at APEC Gathering
a compilation of key facts

PlanetArk 3 Sep 07
Merkel Backs Climate Deal Based on Population
Story by Claudia Kade

PlanetArk 3 Sep 07
Industrial Nations Agree Step to New Climate Pact
Story by Alister Doyle

Yahoo News 2 Sep 07
No APEC deal on climate change targets: Howard
by Lawrence Bartlett

Yahoo News 2 Sep 07
Climate change: Kyoto Poker to start in earnest
by Anne Chaon and Richard Ingham

Yahoo News 3 Sep 07
Battle lines drawn on climate change at asian summit
by Martin Abbugao

Developing nations led by China are set for a bruising battle with the United States and Australia on climate change, a senior official at a key summit of Asia Pacific nations said Monday.

The veteran Southeast Asian foreign ministry official, who asked not to be named, said talks to craft a separate leaders' statement on climate change at this week's APEC are expected to be "bloody."

China and a group of developing countries that are gravitating towards Beijing's position on the thorny issue are ranged against developed nations such as summit host Australia and its ally the United States.

"There's going to be a very big debate," the official told reporters as officials prepared to draft the statement for their leaders. "The debates will just accentuate the differences."

Presidents and prime ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum are to issue a statement on climate change at the end of their September 8-9 leaders' meeting, but differences remain significant.

China and other developing countries feel Australia and the United States -- the only two developed nations to have refused to ratify the Kyoto accord on curbing global warming -- are trying to undermine the treaty, the source said.

Australia has proposed that APEC set a goal of reducing "energy intensity" across the region by 25 percent by 2030, but developing countries have opposed this, saying it would change the rules under Kyoto.

Setting quantitative targets "is the most contentious," the source added. "They are essentially changing the rules," he said, adding that APEC was not a negotiating body.

His remarks followed criticisms by Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz that Australia and the United States should not hijack the APEC summit to discuss climate change.

The two countries did not have the credentials to use APEC as a place to tackle climate change because they are not signatories to the Kyoto accord, said Rafidah, who will attend the meetings in Sydney.

Climate change activists were also making their presence felt despite the stringent security here. Four environmental protesters staged a pre-dawn break-in at an Australian power station in the southeastern state of Victoria, chaining themselves to a coal-carrying conveyor belt.

A police search and rescue crew used metal cutters to free the demonstrators -- who said they belonged to a group called "Real Action on Climate Change" -- before arresting them.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has made climate change a key focus of the summit, normally devoted to trade issues, but conceded Sunday there is no hope of the 21 APEC nations agreeing on binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The source said Australia only informed APEC members of a special meeting, starting Tuesday, of officials responsible for climate change issues three weeks ago, sending some economies scrambling for people to send to Sydney.

The APEC meeting is just one of three international conferences this month that will tackle a problem which scientists warn could lead to increasingly dangerous storms, heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

It will be followed in two weeks by a special UN meeting called by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a few days after that by a conference in Washington called by President George W. Bush.

In December, the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol will meet on the Indonesian resort island of Bali to plan strategies after the protocol runs out in 2012. APEC's economies account for 56 percent of the world's GDP and cover 41 percent of the world's population.

PlanetArk 3 Sep 07
Industrial Nations Agree Step to New Climate Pact
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

VIENNA - Industrial nations agreed on Friday to consider stiff 2020 goals for cutting greenhouse gases in a small step towards a new long-term pact to fight climate change.

About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 UN talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations' work on a new pact to extend the UN's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

"These conclusions...indicate what industrialised countries must do to show leadership," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, welcoming a compromise deal on the range of needed cuts.

"But more needs to be done by the global community," he told a news conference at the end of the 158-nation talks.

Many countries want to broaden Kyoto to include targets for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations. Delegates agreed that the 25-40 percent range "provides useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions".

It fell short of calls by the European Union and developing nations for the range to be called a stronger "guide" for future work.

Pacific Island states said that even stiffer cuts may be needed to avert rising seas that could wash them off the map.

Nations including Russia, Japan and Canada had objected to the idea of a "guide", reckoning it might end up binding them to make sweeping economic shifts away from fossil fuels, widely seen as a main cause of global warming.

Delegates in the Vienna conference hall applauded for 10 seconds after adopting the compromise text by consensus.

STARTING POINT

"This is a small step," Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the EU Commission delegation, told Reuters. "We wanted bigger steps. But I think the 25-40 percent will be viewed as a starting point, an anchor for further work."

The UN's climate panel said in a study in May 2007 that rich nations would have to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent to help avert the worst impacts of climate change from droughts, storms, heatwaves and rising seas.

"The process is moving along," said Leon Charles from Grenada, who chaired the final session. "By and large we have achieved our objectives".

De Boer said that the decisions might help environment ministers who will meet in Bali, Indonesia, in December, to agree to launch formal negotiations on a new global climate treaty to be decided by the end of 2009.

"This meeting has put the Bali conference in the starting blocks," de Boer said.

Environmentalists also hailed the conclusions as a step in the right direction. "The road to Bali is clear but it's time to switch gears," said Red Constantino of Greenpeace. "We have a clear message from most governments that they will take seriously" scientists' calls for deep cuts, said Hans Verolme, climate expert of the WWF.

Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a first bid to contain warming.

The United States has not ratified Kyoto, rating it too costly and unfair for excluding 2012 goals for developing states, and thus was not involved in Friday's session. President George W. Bush has separately called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on Sept. 27-28 to work out future cuts.

PlanetArk 3 Sep 07
Merkel Backs Climate Deal Based on Population
Story by Claudia Kade

KYOTO, Japan - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wanted to offer developing countries a compromise climate change pact based on population size, but warned on Friday that negotiations will be tough.

Merkel, who helped draw up the Kyoto Protocol on climate change as Germany's environment minister in 1997, made global warming and talks over a deal to succeed the protocol the focus of her three-day visit to Japan.

"The question is: at what point can we involve developing countries, and what kind of measure do we use to create a just world?" Merkel said in Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital where the 1997 protocol was agreed.

Merkel suggested that developing countries should be allowed to increase their emissions per capita while industrialised national cut theirs, until both sides reach the same level.

She brought up the proposal when she met officials in China before travelling to Japan, but the Chinese were sceptical, according to the German delegation. "Once (developing countries) reach the level of industrialised countries, the reduction begins," Merkel said.

A similar idea was fielded by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the G8 summit with major developing countries in Germany in June.

Under the Kyoto pact, 35 developed nations are obliged to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Developing nations, many of which have signed the protocol, are not obliged to make any reductions during the pact's first phase -- a concession that saw the United States and Australia pull out of the pact.

Both nations, among the world's top per-capita polluters, say it's unfair that big developing nations such as China, India and Indonesia, are excluded and view the pact as bad for their economies.

DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD

Many developing countries, in turn, are worried that strict environmental regulations will hamper economic growth. They demand industrialised nations, as chief polluters, bear the brunt of emission cuts.

In turn, wealthy nations with relatively small populations and large industries fear a per-capita target could hurt them.

Currently, per-capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are far higher in rich economies than in their poorer counterparts. The United States produces about 20 tonnes of CO2 a year per capita, Germany 11 tonnes and the European Union an average of 9 tonnes, according to the German government. China, on the other hand, churns out only 3.5 tonnes a year per head. The global average is 4.2 tonnes.

Merkel repeated the aim was to halve global CO2 emissions by 2050. "That's a very big goal, but it's the consensus among experts. If we can't reach that, we'll pay for it dearly," she said. "If we don't do anything, we have to expect considerable changes in our climate."

The United Nations is holding a major meeting on climate change in December on the Indonesian island of Bali. Backers want delegates to agree to launch talks on a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

Negotiators are aiming to hammer out the new pact by 2009, and Japan plays a crucial role since it is hosting the next G8 summit in Hokkaido in 2008.

Merkel pointed out that targets included in the Kyoto Protocol had not been reached. The European Union has only achieved a 1.9 percent cut so far compared to a targeted 8 percent reduction, she said. Emissions have increased in Japan, which had pledged to cut them by 6 percent.

About 1,000 delegates from 158 nations are currently meeting in Vienna to discuss global warming.

Yahoo News 2 Sep 07
No APEC deal on climate change targets: Howard
by Lawrence Bartlett

Asia-Pacific countries will not agree on binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at a major summit this week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum -- which includes the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China -- will outline tactics for the post-Kyoto fight against climate change at the September 8-9 summit.

Howard, who had said the issue would top the APEC agenda in Sydney, was forced to go on the defensive after a leaked draft of a declaration by leaders of the forum's 21 member economies revealed no targets would be agreed.

"We must be realistic about what can be achieved on climate change. We won't reach agreement, nor do we imagine for a moment that we could reach agreement, on binding targets amongst the member countries of APEC," he told reporters.

The main international treaty on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a series of meetings at which plans for a post-Kyoto agreement are being discussed.

But the leaked draft declaration has already been dismissed by experts and activists as mere hot air. The draft says APEC members "agree that a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal will be a key component of the post-2012 framework," but sets no enforceable targets. Greenpeace, which posted the draft on its website, said it did not go far enough.

"In 1995 the world community agreed that voluntary, aspirational targets were ineffective and, as such, negotiated the Kyoto Protocol which includes binding emission reduction commitments," the environmental watchdog said. "To return to aspirational targets would throw away 12 years of progress."

Howard said any APEC framework agreement on a post-Kyoto approach had to be based on the fact that each member economy had different needs.

"We do not believe that continuing down the Kyoto path is going to provide a solution to the problem," he told a news conference. "What I would like to see the APEC meeting in Sydney do is develop a consensus on a post-Kyoto international framework that attracts participation by all emitters.

"And if we just have a singular focus at this meeting -- as some are naively urging -- on binding targets, that will just postpone the development of that agreement by years."

Australia and the United States are the only two countries in the world to have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, complaining that it could hurt their economies.

The APEC meeting is just one of three international conferences this month that will tackle a problem which scientists warn could lead to increasingly dangerous storms, heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

It will be followed in two weeks by a special UN meeting called by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a few days after that by a conference in Washington called by President George W. Bush. Bush has invited 15 nations and the European Union, which together account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, to set long-term goals on cutting outputs.

In December, the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol will meet on the Indonesian resort island of Bali to plan strategies for the post-Kyoto world.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.

The forum's economies account for 56 percent of the world's GDP and cover 41 percent of the world's population.

Yahoo News 2 Sep 07
Climate change: Kyoto Poker to start in earnest
by Anne Chaon and Richard Ingham

Efforts to accelerate action against the world's looming climate crisis begin in earnest this month, unfolding against a background of deepening scientific concern but entrenched political obstacles.

Two meetings may decide whether a key conference, taking place in Bali, Indonesia this December, will at last smash the logjam over how to step up cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions or be a landmark in fiascos.

The Bali meeting, gathering members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will strive to set a roadmap for negotiating global pollution cuts that will be implemented after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol runs out.

The clock is ticking fast. The next new treaty must be completed by 2009 or 2010 at the very latest, so that all signatories can ratify it in time.

So far, the post-2012 haggle has been messy, sometimes nightmarishly so.

Progress has often been tortoise-like as key players baulk and quibble or wait for others to declare their hand.

"It's not even a coalition of the willing," a UN source wearily told AFP on Friday, as a session in Vienna of Kyoto parties dragged into extra time.

For scientists, the "greenhouse effect" -- a warming of Earth's surface as solar heat is trapped by carbon gas from fossil fuels -- poses an ever grimmer peril. In three reports this year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that by the end of the 21st century, the warmer world faced a heightened probability of water shortage, drought, flood and severe storms, boosting the risk of malnutrition, water-borne disease and homelessness.

Even though governments acknowledge the gravity of the threat, they seem unable to reach any consensus about how to tackle it.

Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions carries an economic price, for it entails a drive for greater energy efficiency and a switch to cleaner fuels. There is is little willingness for self-sacrifice if others are suspected to get an easier ride.

Roughly speaking, the post-2012 negotiations resemble a kaleidoscope image fractured into three parts.

In one part are the radicals, led by the European Union (EU), who want Kyoto's successor to set ambitious, unambiguous targets for cuts by industrialised countries. They talk of a reduction of some 30 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, a figure strongly opposed by other industrialised countries, notably Russia.

In another part are China and India, now major carbon polluters. So far, they are sitting on their hands. They are waiting to see what the industrialised countries will offer while ruling out targeted pledges on their own pollution if to do so imperils their rise from poverty.

The third -- and possibly most intractable -- part of the kaleidoscope image is that of the United States.

It, alone among the big polluters, opposes Kyoto (although it remains part of the UNFCCC, the main arena), citing the Protocol's mandatory caps and the fact that developing countries duck binding pledges of cuts.

So a big question is how to build a treaty with variable geometry, enabling the United States to join the carbon cleanup club even if it still opposes Kyoto-style obligations espoused by the others.

In this context, two meetings are scheduled that seek to blow away the smoke obscuring the poker table.

The first will be in New York, where UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host a meeting of some 30 major countries on September 24, which will be following by a General Assembly session devoted to climate change.

The other follows on September 27 and 28 in Washington, when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will chair a meeting of 16 countries that together account for some 90 percent of global emissions.

The US insists the Washington meeting simply aims to clarify matters so that at least everyone knows who is offering what, and any deal will feed into the UN process.

Even so, suspicions run deep among greens and in Europe that the US wants to subvert the mandatory Kyoto approach and replace it with a voluntary, technology-driven tack.

The Washington conference "is in spirit an attempt to block" the Kyoto process, according to an internal memo by a European government seen by AFP. It calls on EU members to be "perfectly united in the face of the American initiative."

PlanetArk 4 Sep 07
Climate Change a Hot Topic at APEC Gathering

INTERNATIONAL: Climate change will be a major focus when leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies meet in Sydney this week.

No binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions are expected to be agreed but officials might back a consensus on what a replacement for the UN Kyoto Protocol climate change pact might look like.

Many governments want environment ministers meeting at UN climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, in December to launch two-year negotiations to agree a broader international treaty to replace Kyoto.

WHAT'S AT STAKE

Kyoto's first phase runs out in 2012 and there are growing diplomatic efforts to find a formula that brings rich and developing nations together to curb emissions growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Scientists say time is running out to stop damaging climate change caused by a build-up of these gases in the atmosphere.

Big polluters such as China, India, the United States and Australia are firmly opposed to binding emissions cuts, saying this will harm their economies. Developing nations also want rich countries to agree to deep cuts first, blaming the industrialised world for much of the greenhouse gas pollution already in the air.

WHAT'S BEEN AGREED ON CLIMATE CHANGE THIS YEAR

June 2007 - Rich nations in the Group of Eight said they wanted agreement by the end of 2009 on a long-term UN plan to fight global warming, partly in response to warnings of ever more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. The G8 agreed at a summit in Germany that "resolute and concerted international action" was urgently needed, vowing to stem a rise in greenhouse gases, followed by "substantial" reductions. They didn't specify what they meant by substantial.

Aug 2007 - Industrial countries agree at 158-nation talks to non-binding emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels. The agreement is seen as a starting point for rich nations' work on a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Delegates to the talks in Vienna agreed that the 25-40 percent range for non-binding cuts by 2020 "provides useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions".

WHAT'S NEXT

-- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders meet in Sydney, including US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao, for a summit on Sept. 8-9.

-- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to hold a high-level meeting on climate change on Sept. 24 on the fringes of the UN General Assembly's annual session in New York.

-- President Bush has called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on Sept. 27-28 to work out future cuts.

-- Dec. 3-14 UN meeting on climate change in Bali.

NOTABLE PLEDGES, INITIATIVES

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says developing countries should be allowed to increase their emissions per capita while industrialised nations cut theirs, until both sides reached the same level. India has also discussed this idea as a possible compromise.

At June's G8 summit, leaders agreed to consider Merkel's aim for a 50 percent cut in emissions by 2050. Japan has also proposed cutting its emissions in half by 2050.

Australia's Howard will push APEC leaders to address the climate change issue by agreeing to a "post-Kyoto framework", though without binding emission targets. Howard announced A$70 million (US$58 million) in Asia-Pacific climate change initiatives on Sunday, which will help fund the development and deployment of cleaner, more efficient energy technologies in the region.

(Source: Reuters) (Compiled by David Fogarty; Singapore World Desk, +65 6870 3814)
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Indonesia calls on rainforest nations to close ranks Straits Times 2 Sep 07
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