Industrialized Countries' Greenhouse Gases Hit Record High

The increases came from the continued economic growth in highly industrialized countries as well as the revived economic growth in former European East bloc nations.

Emissions from the transport sector grew at the highest rate.

Idling in traffic jams, vehicles emit high levels of greenhouse gases. (Photo courtesy FreeFoto.com)

Taken together, the countries that signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol are projected to achieve reductions on the order of 11 percent for the first Kyoto commitment period, from 2008 to 2012, provided policies and measures adopted by these countries deliver the reductions as projected.

The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialized countries to a five percent reduction target in 2008-2012 compared to 1990 levels.

But while the European Union as a whole is projected to achieve its objective making use of the Kyoto mechanisms such as emissions trading, other Kyoto Parties are projected to see an upward trend in emissions, the secretariat said.

"For the totality of Kyoto signatory countries, reductions of 15 percent are feasible should additional policies be planned and implemented," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC. "But we should not hide the fact that there is continuing greenhouse gas emissions growth on the part of several countries and that they must do more to rein in their emissions."

This year's United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Bali Indonesia from December 3 to 14 will be presided over by Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, with support from the UN's Climate Change Secretariat.

The main goal of the conference is to launch negotiations on a new international climate change agreement. More than 10,000 participants are expected to attend.

The conference will not deliver a fully negotiated and agreed climate deal but is aimed to set the necessary wheels in motion. Parties are expected to agree the key areas which the new agreement should cover, such as mitigation including avoided deforestation, adaptation, technology and financing. They also are also expected to agree on 2009 as the year the negotiations will conclude.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has challenged the world's policymakers to start devising a comprehensive deal for tackling climate change in Bali after a UN report released Saturday found that global warming is unequivocal and could cause irreversible damage to the planet.

Launching the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, which brings together hundreds of scientific experts, Ban said that slowing and even reversing the effects of climate change "is the defining challenge of our age."

"Concerted and sustained action now can still avoid some of the most catastrophic scenarios in the IPCC forecasts," he said.

Slaskie coal-burning power plant in Poland emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Photo courtesy PKE Elektrownia Laziska)

"We can transform a necessity into virtue," said the secretary-general. "We can pursue new and improved ways to produce, consume and discard. We can promote environmentally friendly industries that spur development and job creation even as they reduce emissions. We can usher in a new era of global partnership, one that helps lift all boats on the rising tide of climate-friendly development."

For this to happen, Ban said the world's industrialized countries must form a "grand bargain" with developing nations, which are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

The report details how reduced rainfall in much of Africa is likely to aggravate existing water shortages and slash crop yields, rising sea levels are set to inundate small island states, and melting glaciers could trigger major floods in South Asia and South America.

More heat waves and periods of heavy rainfall are deemed very likely to occur, tropical cyclones are predicted to become more intense and a dramatic decrease in the polar ice caps is also expected as air and ocean temperatures keep rising. In the worst case scenario, nearly a third of all of plant and animal species could be at risk of extinction.

The IPCC explains that industry, agriculture and infrastructure can become far more energy-efficient, water can be more effectively conserved and used and countries can become less dependent on fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources of energy.

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said governments have "a wide variety of policies and instruments" available to create incentives to mitigate behavior – especially in the area of carbon emissions.

"We need a new ethic by which every human being realizes the importance of the challenge we are facing and starts to take action through changes in lifestyle and attitude," Pachauri said.

The report, released in Valencia, Spain, is the synthesis of three IPCC reports issued earlier this year that examined the scientific basis of climate change, the impact it is having and ways to mitigate and adapt to the phenomenon.

To assist governments in their efforts, the UN Climate Change Secretariat has put in place comprehensive review processes for emissions data and policy-related information, and also established technical infrastructure for emissions trading.

"What is positive is that Parties to the Kyoto Protocol have been taking their commitments very seriously in as much they have been putting in place policies and infrastructure to support Kyoto implementation, including registries for emissions accounting and national systems for the assessment of emission levels," said de Boer. "International carbon trading can be taken to a higher level next year."

The Kyoto Protocol has spawned international emissions trading worth 30 billion dollars in 2006, with the bulk of emissions trading taking place within the European Union's emissions trading scheme. This trading system will be linked to trading under the Kyoto Protocol next year when the first commitment period begins.

Many countries are preparing to make active use of the Kyoto Protocol's flexible mechanisms to reach their goal, which allow industrialized countries to meet their emission reduction obligations in a cost-effective manner.

The flexibility mechanisms of the Protocol are emissions trading, the clean development mechanism and joint implementation.

These mechanisms allow industrialized countries to purchase emission reductions abroad at lower cost than reducing emissions at home, supplementing domestic emission reduction efforts.

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