COP-17: Time running out for deal on global warming

BY AGENCIES

TIME is running out to strike a deal at global climate talks to save a Kyoto Protocol in its death throes and make large cuts in the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for rising temperatures, wilder weather and crop failures.

Parties have been at loggerheads for years, warnings of climate disaster are becoming more dire and diplomats worry whether South Africa, the host country, is up to the challenge of brokering the tough discussions among nearly 200 countries that run from Monday to December 9 in Durban.

There are glimmers of hope that a deal can be reached on a fund to finance projects for developing countries hardest hit by

climate change, and that advanced economies responsible for most global emissions will take it on their own to make deeper cuts at the talks known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP-17.

There is also a chance of a political deal to keep the Kyoto Protocol alive with a new set of binding targets, but only the European Union, New Zealand, Australia, Norway and Switzerland are likely to sign up at best. Any accord depends on China and the US, the world’s top emitters, agreeing on binding action under a wider deal by 2015, something both have resisted for years.

"Expectations are already at rock bottom regarding an international climate change architecture at the summit, and there is no reason to expect any upside," said Divya Reddy, analyst at Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy.

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005, commits most developed states to binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions. The talks in Durban offer delegates their last chance to set another round of fixed targets before the first period commitment ends in 2012.

The main players are at each other’s throats on extending the protocol. The US still has not ratified the accord; China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is unwilling to make any commitments until Washington does; and Russia,Japan and Canada say they will not sign up for a second commitment period unless the biggest emitters do too.

Emerging countries insist Kyoto must be extended and that rich nations, which have historically emitted most greenhouse gas pollution, should take on tougher targets to ensure they do their fair share in the fight against climate change.

Developing nations say carbon caps could hurt their growth and programmes to lift millions out of poverty.

On top of the acrimony, the global financial crisis, with mounting debt woes in the euro zone and the US, makes it even more difficult to find financing and for states to take on emissions cuts that could hurt their growth prospects.