Kyoto Fate Unclear as UN Climate Talks End
Date: 16-Dec-03
Country: ITALY
Author: Alister Doyle
Many nations reaffirmed support for the 1997 pact despite scant progress at the 12-day Milan talks on ways to fight rising temperatures blamed for more droughts, storms and for melting glaciers that may raise sea levels.
Organizers said delegates agreed to set up a new fund to help poor countries adapt to the impact of warming temperatures but shelved the thorniest issue of whether cash could go to OPEC states if consumers shift to wind or solar power.
"The Special Climate Change Fund can go ahead," said Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, told a news conference. The accord was set to be formally adopted later last week.
She said the fund would aid developing states, giving new technology and helping them to adapt policies in everything from health to farming.
But the conference put off debate over whether it could also foster "economic diversification." Saudi Arabia and other oil producers argue they should get help to diversify if renewable energies like wind or solar power dent demand for fossil fuels.
Donors say the fund, likely to total about $50 million a year, would be bankrupted if it went to OPEC. Countries led by the European Union have promised about $410 million extra a year to help developing countries facing climate change.
RUSSIAN ACTION?
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, whose country holds the key to whether Kyoto enters into force, told Japanese media that Moscow was preparing a "special action plan" to ratify. He gave no deadline.
Supporters of Kyoto at the 180-nation talks welcomed his remarks, which follow a string of apparently contradictory statements from Moscow about the deal to rein in emissions from factories, cars and power plants.
Kyoto aims overall to cut rich countries' emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
"The Kyoto protocol is the only game in town," German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said, expressing confidence that Russia would ratify. The United States has said Kyoto is too costly and wrongly excludes developing nations.
Environmentalists accused Washington of trying to torpedo the accord. "Kyoto is moving forward despite efforts by the Bush administration to undermine the process," Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF climate change program.
Steve Sawyer, climate policy chief of Greenpeace, said that Russia's choice on Kyoto would be a test of its role in the world after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"Russia can either be seen as a force for multilateralism or can decide to go it alone and become a new rogue state like the United States," he said.
Trittin said that Kyoto would bring big foreign investments to Russia and spur its economy. But Moscow told the talks last week that hopes of economic benefits were "illusory."
Moscow has also said warmer weather might help extend farm areas north. Diplomats say Russia may want membership of the World Trade Organization as a price for ratification.
Without Russia, Kyoto will collapse because it needs backing by nations accounting for 55 percent of emissions of carbon dioxide to start. So far it has reached 44 percent and needs Russia's 17 in the absence of a U.S. stake of 36 percent.
