Urgency Mounts at UN Climate Negotiations

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 16, 2004 (ENS) - Argentine President Nestor Carlos Kirchner opened the high level segment of the United Nations climate change conference Wednesday by urging the industrialized countries to acknowledge that their development has been achieved by using global communal property without cost. Now the entire world is experiencing global warming, which is linked to the emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

The developing countries must pay their debts to "implacable creditors," said Kirchner whose economy is just recovering from a severe crisis, "but the evolved and powerful societies avoid the basic commitment to the preservation of the life embodied in this Convention and the Kyoto Protocol."

President Nestor Carlos Kirchner of Argentina urged the industrialized countries to do more to reverse climate change. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB))

"Argentineans value the right to the life as the supreme good," Kirchner said, and for that reason, "we cannot accept that whole societies are condemned to disappear only because in another place of the world the necessary political will is not applied to avoid it."

Sea level rise predicted to result from the melting of the polar ice caps is expected to inundate low-lying countries and cities, and has already forced the leaders of the island nations of Tuvalu and the Maldives to seek other places to evacuate their people, to date without success.

The lives of the indigenous people of the Arctic, the Inuit, are already being destroyed by the warming climate, the elected chairperson of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), told conference participants Wednesday. The ICC represents the Inuit people from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier said the ICC has decided to petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, seeking a declaration that the emissions of greenhouse gases are a violation of Inuit human rights.

She said warming in the Arctic is predicted to increase at twice the global average rate, and indicated that the threshold of dangerous anthropogenic interference defined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Article 2 has already been reached in the Arctic.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Canada chairs the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. (Photo courtesy ENB)

These changes result in destructive social behavior in Inuit communities, she said, stressing the urgent need for action, and asking industrialized countries to exceed their Kyoto Protocol commitments to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), on the panel with Watt-Cloutier, praised the Inuit leader for having, "ably articulated the concerns of your people in the face of the devastating effects of climate change and its relentless assault on Inuit traditional life."

Attorneys from Earthjustice and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) are working with the Inuit to file the petition. Donald Goldberg, a senior attorney from CIEL who moderated the panel said, "Climate change is a human rights concern on an unprecedented scale. It poses an immediate danger for Inuit and other Arctic inhabitants, but millions of people in mountain areas, low-lying island and coastal regions, and other vulnerable parts of the world will soon face similar threats."

"Protecting human rights is the most fundamental responsibility of governments," said Martin Wagner, International Program managing attorney for Earthjustice. "Climate change is threatening the health, culture, and livelihoods of the Inuit. It is the responsibility of the United States, as the largest source of greenhouse gases, to take immediate action to protect the rights of the Inuit and others around the world."

Polar bears and gulls enjoy a whale feast on an Arctic beach. This ecosystem is at risk from global warming. (Photo courtesy Ian Macrea)

The United States, with five percent of the world's population, contributes 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, the Inuit leader pointed out. The administration of President George W. Bush "has consistently ignored the international scientific consensus that links rapid climate change to man-made greenhouse gas emissions and refused to take concerted action," she said.

“It is our hope that the White House will listen to its own scientists and to the international community," Watt-Cloutier said. "We need strong measures now to dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions. Without such immediate action, not only are Inuit in peril but the entire planet is at risk.”

But the United States has balked at commitments to make targeted cuts in its emissions of greenhouse gases, and will not consider ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the UNFCCC.

Instead, the official science advisor to President George W. Bush said in Washington Wednesday that that United States will introduce new technologies, improve scientific tools, and "enlist the cooperation of other nations" to address climate change.

Dr. John H. Marburger, III said in a "vision" statement that, "U.S. climate-oriented technology initiatives are ambitious on a scale commensurate with the challenges: development of hydrogen technologies that can enable more efficient and carbon-free means of transportation and other applications; new kinds of power plants - "FutureGen" plants - that generate power from hydrocarbons, but release no carbon to the atmosphere; and renewed commitment to research on carbon-free forms of power generation such as nuclear fusion that can be scaled to an economically significant size."

"The vision here is to forge new energy technologies that all nations can use to meet their goals of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, without compromising the sustained improvements in living standards to which all nations aspire," Marburger said.

These technologies are in development, but hydrogen fuel cell cars are generally thought to be at least 15 years from the market, while the $1 billion, 10 year FutureGen clean coal demonstration project has not been fully funded. The United States is participating with five other governments in the nuclear fusion ITER multi-billion dollar project, which has yet to establish a location.

Meanwhile, 2004 is set to go down in the history books as the most expensive year for the insurance industry worldwide as a result of hurricanes, typhoons and other climate related natural disasters.

The United States, at over $26 billion, suffered the highest insured losses of any nation, according to preliminary figures compiled by Munich Re, one of the world's biggest re-insurance companies. Munich Re, a member of the UNEP Finance Initiative, released the figures Wednesday at the climate change conference.

A destroyed mobile home in Mindendorf, South Carolina is one result of tornado damage from Hurricane Frances. September 6, 2004. (Photo by Marvin Nauman courtesy FEMA)

Economic losses, the majority of which were not insured, also have cost the planet and its people dearly. Preliminary figures for the months January to October estimate that these losses were also among the highest on record, totalling about $90 billion - up from over $65 billion in 2003.

Hardest hit have been many small, developing countries such as the islands of Grenada and Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. Hurricane Ivan, which struck Grenada in September, killed 28 people and is estimated to cost $1 billion in damaged homes, buildings and agricultural losses.

The insurance industry is worried that new, climate related risks may be emerging. Hurricane Catarina, which hit Brazil earlier this year, developed in the southern Atlantic where sea surface temperatures are normally too low to trigger tropical cyclones.

Klaus Toepfer is executive director of the UN Environment Programme. (Photo courtesy ENB)

Thomas Loster, a senior executive and climate expert with Munich Re, said, "As in 2002 and 2003, the overall balance of natural catastrophes is again clearly dominated by weather-related disasters - many of them exceptional and extreme. Indeed 98 percent of all losses for 2004 and about 100 percent of insured losses were weather driven. We need to stop this dangerous experiment human-kind is conducting on the Earth's atmosphere."

"I would urge delegates and governments here in Buenos Aires to make a strong commitment to a post-Kyoto agenda, otherwise the industry's appetite to finance and insure projects under the instruments of the Kyoto Protocol, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, will be blunted," said Loster.

The Clean Development Mechanism allows industrialized countries that must meet legally binding greenhouse gas emissions targets to meet them by establishing climate friendly projects in developing countries without targets.

The full report by Munich Re will be published in early 2005; see: www.munichre.com

Today and tomorrow, the discussions among ministers from around the world and the heads of regional groups will focus on how to actually reduce the emission of the six greenhouse gases governed by the Kyoto Protocol.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Joke Waller-Hunter highlighted the achievements of the Convention since its entry into force in 1994, but she observed that despite the efforts of many countries, concentrations of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are rising at an increasing rate and climate change impacts are already evident.

In his opening formal statement Wednesday, Jiang Liu, vice-minister of the State Development and Reform Commission, China, said the Conference of Parties provides the opportunity for a shift from negotiations and rulemaking to implementation and concrete action.

Destitute nomads from Mali came to Christine Wells in northern Burkina Faso in search of pasture but found a wasteland. (Photo courtesy FAO)

A. Raja, Minister of Environment and Forests of India, expressed concern over growth in developed countries’ emissions and said greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries will increase if they are to achieve sustainable development and poverty eradication.

Japanese Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said Japan is reviewing its climate change program. Japan is a Kyoto Protocol participant, and Koike stressed that additional policies and measures in the energy sector are required to meet Japan’s reduction targets, while maintaining economic growth.

Emphasizing that climate change is the world’s most serious threat, The Netherlands Environment Minister Pieter van Geel, speaking on behalf of the European Union, called for limiting global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. This would mean a much deeper cut in greenhouse gas emissions than required under the Kyoto Protocol, which the EU has ratified.

Noting that postponing action will make adaptation more difficult, van Geel called on countries to start considering future commitments.

Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky is facing criticism of the Bush administration's climate policies. (Photo courtesy ENB)

Her job is to hold the line against the pressure for the United States to commit to greenhouse gas reductions, and she did so. At the same time, she again recounted the Bush administration's efforts to combat climate change, through multilateral scientific and technological initiatives. She stressed that economic growth and environmental protection should go hand-in-hand.

Meanwhile, Italian Environment Minister Altero Matteoli told reporters here that if the United States and the largest developing countries cannot be brought into the Kyoto process by the end of the first commitment period in 2012, Italy would prefer to proceed with voluntary agreements.

Matteoli said that instead of binding emissions targets, "we must proceed with voluntary accords, bilateral pacts and commercial partnerships."