Post-Kyoto Talks Open In Bonn With Huge Differences Between Blocs

[hatrack]

"Talks started on Monday to draw up a treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the existing Kyoto Protocol to fight climate change runs out. Experts nominated by more than 100 governments met in Bonn, Germany, on the first lap of negotiations likely to last two years or more.

But the first day revealed a fault line between governments. Some want a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, with a similar recipe of national emissions targets and trading in pollution permits. But others want to tear up the Kyoto blueprint and start again, with a different system of targets - or perhaps no legally binding targets at all.

The two-day experts' meeting is aiming to set the agenda before negotiations begin in earnest when ministers meet in Montreal, Canada, in December 2005. Opening the meeting, the German environment minister Jurgen Trittin said the Kyoto target-and-trade system "has proved successful". He called for its continuation, with tougher emissions cuts of 15% to 30% - up to six times existing targets - to be met by industrialised nations by 2020.

But others said it would be easier to persuade Kyoto opt-outs like the US and Australia, and developing countries like China, India and Brazil, to accept targets if they were based on something other than crude cuts in national emissions."

EDIT

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7385

[phantom power]

1. This isn't going to happen, is it.

The countries that "get it" will migrate to non-fossil energy on their own initiative. The countries that cover their ears and say "lalala!" will never sign on to any agreements with real teeth. It's time for the countries that "get it" to quit waiting on the rest of us. They may be our only hope.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The US's "carbon intensity" measurement is such bullshit

because it just means they will increase their GDP (from which, if Republicans get their way, the rich will get all the benefit) and say "look, no problem". Being rich is not an excuse for ruining the planet! So what if a country produce more stuff - that's just more likely to ruin the environment in other ways as well.

[hatrack]

3. If net emissions continue to increase (and they will) it is not a solution

But it sure sounds good on Sunday morning talking head forums where "journalists" don't ask follow-up questions.

[Xithras]

4. Kyoto was a joke and should not be extended.

Kyoto was a fatally flawed treaty in that it won't actually reduce global pollution...and it wouldn't have even if the US had signed on. By awarding "pollution credits" to non-polluting countries, and then allowing those countries to resell those credits to major polluters as a way to "opt-out" of the Kyoto limits, the Kyoto Protocol simply enshrined a way for the major countries to justify their pollution (Example: "Hey we can pollute all we want. We bought our pollution rights from Sumatra and Zaire"). It was a political treaty that simply allowed major countries to continue their pollution, while enriching less developed countries as they generated income from trading those credits.

What we NEED is a comprehensive pollution control treaty that cuts output across the board. We need an international TAX on polluting fuels that cross national borders, and on the greenhouse gas output of equipment and vehicles that are transferred from one nation to another. Pollution control limits should also have teeth...trade sanctions and levees against the countries that do not meet their goals. Finally, they should NOT take population into account. Per capita pollution credits are a flawed idea because a 10 percent reduction in per-capita pollution in a nation with 15% population growth still equates to an overall INCREASE in the amount of pollution generated by a country.

Taxes and levees generated by a real pollution control treaty should be used solely to fund the development of newer and cleaner energy sources.