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Looking beyond Kyoto

Climate change would appear to be a less important question during an economic downturn, but as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has observed, a well thought-out fiscal stimulus can address both the problems through green growth. President-elect Barack Obama shares that view and his promise of opening a “new chapter” in America’s response to the climate challenge has raised great hope. With potential support from the United States, which has f or long emitted the highest levels of greenhouse gases and remained unresponsive to the issue, an international climate pact would be realistic. Such a treaty has to take over from the modest Kyoto protocol that expires in 2012. There is a consensus that the earth will continue to grow warmer due to accumulated atmospheric carbon dioxide. The level of the long-lived gas has risen to 385 parts per million today from 280 ppm before the industrial revolution. A post-Kyoto treaty should aim to slow down carbon emissions and ultimately stop them, in order to achieve a carbon dioxide level of 350 ppm.

At the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Poland a great deal of attention was devoted to implementing a much-needed adaptation fund for vulnerable countries. That effort must be strengthened. In Brussels, the European Union announced a plan to cut emissions by 20 per cent over 1990 levels by 2020. But the EU also allowed huge concessions for member countries having low per capita incomes and heavy dependence on coal-based power. What is more, its emissions trading scheme does not appear to be functioning optimally — preliminary data for 2007 show a surplus of permits rather than the intended shortage that would make emissions costly. A cap-and-trade system involving conventional coal-burning technologies fails to meet the objectives because it allows emissions to continue. The members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change must therefore emphasise trapping of carbon emissions at source by using advanced technologies in the post-Kyoto agreement. This is important because countries with coal reserves are certain to exploit them for power generation. It may be true that the present recessionary trends may marginally lower emissions in the short-term, but there is no room for complacency as a great deal of warming is “in the pipeline” from existing greenhouse gases. Also, there is scope for national actions to accelerate green growth even as the UNFCCC works on a successor to Kyoto.

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