The New Climate Initiative Goes Beyond Kyoto
Posted by Carlo Stagnaro - Commons blog
The new climate initiative that the US and five Asian countries, including the major emerging economies (namely India and China), have unveiled is putting the Kyoto Protocol and its supporters under pressure. Both for its language and scope, the "Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate" follows closely the recent action plan released at the G8 in Gleneagles, Scotland. The agreement is focused on (a) long term actions aimed at (b) developing cleaner, more efficient technologies without (c) harming economic growth; especially as far as developing countries are concerned, the parties agree that (d) the creation of wealth is by far the most effective, if not the only, way to address environmental problems. President Bush and his colleagues from Australia, Japan, India, and China have set forth a new framework that is much more flexible and long-sighted than the Kyoto Protocol. In fact the Republican Administration has been able to coagulate the consensus from a number of countries that account for roughly half of global GHGs emissions today, a figure that is likely to grow with time.
I was quite disappointed, then, when I first saw a comment from Friends of Earth's Tony Juniper: "this is another attempt to undermine Kyoto and a message to the developing world to buy US technology and not to worry about targets and timetables." In fact there is no need to undermine Kyoto, as the Protocol is - in a way - self-undermining. Its most vocal supporter, the European Union, will fail in meeting the targets as the European Environmental Agency openly tells.
Apparently some climate fundamentalists, as well as some political actors (it seems that neither London nor Brussels took very well the Partnership), value their opposition to the White House more than a move that might well help to reduce future emissions.
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