by Gao Li
As a two-week UN climate change conference is almost drawing to
the end here, the fate of Bali Roadmap, which is eyed on by the
whole world, still hangs in the air.
The deadlock between the European Union and the United States,
Japan and Canada over a number of goals for emissions in the final
text of the meeting cast shadow over the fate of the meeting and
raised the question over whether a Bali Roadmap, which is expected
to guide global efforts in dealing with climate change impacts in
the future can be achieved in the end.
The EU wants the Bali talks to agree a non-binding goal of cuts
in emissions of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 for
industrial economies. Washington says such a range would prejudge
the outcome of the negotiations.
The 4th assessment report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) makes it very clear that in order to avoid
the worst damages of climate change, global emissions need to peak
and decline before 2020.
In a speech delivered here on Thursday, Al Gore, Nobel Peace
Prize co-laureate and former U.S. vice president, accused his own
country, the United States, of being "principally responsible" for
blocking progress here toward an agreement on launching
negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in
2012.The protocol binds 36 industrialized countries to reduce
emissions by an average 5 percent below the 1990 levels between
2008 and 2012.
He urged delegates from more than 180 countries not to lose the
momentum by approving a Bali Roadmap during the meeting.
The deadlock between the EU and the U.S. came under spotlight
Thursday as the EU threatens to boycott a U.S.-led climate talks in
Hawaii in January.
"No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting," said
Sigmar Gabriel, top EU environment official from Germany. "This is
the clear position of the EU. I do not know what we should talk
about if there is no target."
France Thursday also called on the United States to agree to
figures on cutting carbon emissions, saying, otherwise, it would
"hesitate" to take part in a U.S.-led climate meeting slated to be
held in Hawaii, United States, in January.
The United States invited 16 other major economies, including
European countries, Japan, China and India, to discuss a program of
what are expected to be nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks
in greenhouse gas emissions.
Adding insult to injury, as ministers from about 40 countries
met just hours before the end of the Bali summit to finalize a
declaration on ways to fight climate change, the U.S. government
delegation submitted a new proposal one hour before midnight
Thursday that wanted to get away from international commitments on
mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are blamed for
climate change and came up with national domestic objectives
instead.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said the U.S. move has the
potential to derail Bali climate conference and push the Bali
climate negotiations to the "brink of failure".
WWF International Director General James P Leape said. "This
proposal would gut the international effort towards halting climate
change and put the future of our planet at risk."
Shane Rattenbury of Greenpeace international said: "This
proposal would throw away 12 years of progress. It's a
made-in-the-US plan for a climate catastrophe, undoing any
commitments to cutting greenhouse gases."
A member of the Indian delegation said the proposal was not
acceptable to India. The group of 77 countries had also come up
with a counter-proposal and negotiations were on.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged climate
negotiators from over 180 countries meeting in Bali to discuss
climate change to have "a political and historical responsibility"
to reach a deal.
It would be "very serious" if the meeting cannot reach a deal,
he said. "I think there will be an agreement."
Hans Verolme, Director of WWF's Global Climate Change Program
said during the climate meeting: "Leaders must agree a formal Bali
Mandate not a roadmap to nowhere, but a highway to stopping
dangerous climate change."
The time is running out for the policy makers here as the
climate meeting, which gathered over 10,000 delegates from over 180
countries, is scheduled to end on Friday.
Meanwhile, news reports said a compromise draft text to launch
in Bali two years of negotiations for a global pact to fight
climate change has dropped a key ambition of tough 2020 greenhouse
emissions cuts for rich countries.
The fate of the Bali roadmap that is supposed to start a
two-year process of negotiations on an international pact to fight
global warming is still full of twists and turns.
(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2007)
