Greenhouse emissions: Developed countries urged to act faster

Chamikara Weerasinghe in Bali, Indonesia

Major developed countries came under fire yesterday by developing countries participating in the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali, for not making enough efforts and commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The Convention was kicked off on December 3 by the UNFCC with high expectations that it would be instrumental to come out with what they described as the “”Bali Road Map” towards a comprehensive multilateral framework to combat climate change from an all encompassing global perspective.

The G77 group of countries and China said that trying to address the climate change issue would be futile unless developed countries fulfil their commitments to reduce their emissions with deeper and effective cuts as the main polluters of the environment.

They also said that an estimated US$ 200 billion would be needed by developing countries for emission reductions and in addition to that several hundreds of dollars would be needed by the developing countries for adaptation.

The Africa group presented by Nigeria said that the developed countries were attempting through the Bali meetings to draw the developing countries into a negotiation towards a “comprehensive agreement”” in which the developing countries have to take on new commitments as a concession to the developed countries against what they are already mandated to make.

The developed countries are to commit to a second period of emission reductions beginning from 2013 under the UN FCC and Kyoto Protocol. Climate change poses a serious threat on developing countries that in Asia fresh water availability is seemingly declining with most of its coastal areas are at the risk of being flooded.

Pakistan said that the developing countries were historically not responsible for these situations and they have rights and priorities in meeting their present and future development needs.

The G77 listed that lack of fulfilment of commitments during the Kyoto protocol ‘s first commitment period by Annex 1 (developed) countries in reducing emissions, lack of provision of finance and technology transfer to developing countries, Inadequacy of financial resources for adaptation and mitigation efforts and insufficient national institutional capacity in the developing countries to participate in carbon mechanisms as the most formidable challenges in addressing Climate Change.

China expressed their disappointment about the progress made by the developed countries in the area of transferring technologies to developing countries. UNFCC executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said that they wanted a break through in Bali through the formal adoption of a negotiating agenda.

A powerful coalition of developed countries, which is chaired by Australia and is considered a key swing player at the negotiations, is split on the crucial but contentious issue of mandatory national targets for developed countries in any post-Kyoto climate agreement after 2012.

Meanwhile, on behalf of the Umbrella Group made up of developed countries, But the European Union is adamant that any new deal must contain binding commitments for all signatories to the proposed agreement.

The EU has dangled the prospect of even steeper emissions cuts across Europe to fight global warming - but only if the rest of the world follows suit. The bloc urged rich nations to rally together to slash greenhouse gas output by 30 per cent by 2020.