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 Editorials | Environmental | December 2007 
Climate Change: Latin America Wants Rich Nations to Foot the Bill
 Mario Osava - Tierramérica
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 |  | Because of their environmental weight, they must play an active role in the international negotiations.
- Suzana Kahn, IPCC |  | |
Rio De Janeiro - Latin American governments will call for greater commitments from industrialised countries to curb climate change and to provide financial support for developing countries to deal with its effects.
That is the plan Latin America takes to the 13th Conference of Parties (COP13) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 3-14 in Bali, Indonesia.
The industrialised nations promised to contribute to a special fund for climate change adaptation measures, but "nothing has been given so far," complained José Domingos Miguez, secretary of Brazil's Interministerial Commission on Climate Change and one of his country's representatives heading to COP13.
It was agreed that the fund would reach the equivalent of two percent of the resources negotiated in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), but there are differences about which body would be in charge of managing those resources.
The CDM is one of the instruments defined in the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change to help industrialised countries meet their obligations in reducing greenhouse-effect gases by investing in "clean" projects in the developing world.
Because the rich countries are the "most responsible" for global warming, they have "the moral obligation to finance the adaptation plans and actions in developing countries," especially the most vulnerable, like the small island nations, said Omar Rivera, expert with Cuba's Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, and who will also be going to Bali for the climate conference.
Many islands will disappear or will lose much of their land and beaches as a result of rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice. And in the Andes, for example, the melting of glaciers means there will be less fresh water for mountain communities.
The financing and support for confronting climate change's negative effects are "a priority" to be defended by Peru, "a highly vulnerable country," according to Vanesa Vereau, president of the non-governmental United by Climate Change Association, which also is demanding that Lima take a "firm stance" in demanding greater commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
To implement the principle of "shared but differentiated responsibilities," agreed under the Convention, is one position shared by the government officials Tierramérica consulted in the region.
It is in this context that Brazil refuses to set goals for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, despite pressure from environmentalists and experts in that country, which is among the five leading emitters of climate-changing gases due to deforestation in the vast Amazon region.
Under an initiative from an environmentalist lawmaker, a bill is going through Brazil's Parliament that would obligate a reduction, by 2012, of greenhouse gas emissions to four percent less than they were in 1990. That target is just a bit less than the 5.2 percent established by the Kyoto Protocol for industrialised countries.
"Brazil should set some goals, but voluntary ones," according to José Marengo, meteorologist at the National Institute of Space Research and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which involves thousands of scientists from around the globe.
The dramatic reports released by the IPCC since February - highlighting the tragedies the world will suffer if strong measures are not adopted to reduce emissions - awakened hopes that the Bali conference will firm up a plan that will lead to a better future for humanity.
But the expectations are "out of proportion", because there will be no progress without the participation of the United States in the Kyoto Protocol, said Raúl Estrada Oyuela, who recently left the Argentine Foreign Ministry's environmental affairs department, but will be in Bali as a member of the Protocol's Compliance Committee, whose editorial team he headed 10 years ago.
The Kyoto Protocol is the only international treaty that sets requirements for reducing carbon emissions, which come primarily from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and livestock.
The United States, under President George W. Bush, rejected the commitments called for by the Protocol - signed in 1997 and in force only since 2005 - with the argument that it would hurt the domestic economy and, until recently, casting doubt over whether human activity was the cause of climate change.
Furthermore, COP13 will not take up "substantive" matters because it is focused on defining the process, agenda and timeline of the negotiations to take place over the next two years for a "second phase of Kyoto," according to Brazil's Miguez.
He rejects the expression "post-Kyoto", because, he says, it is not a matter of a new process, but rather a continuation under already-agreed principles. The industrialised world should have to comply with new, obligatory goals, "with the developing countries helping through CDMs," Miguez said.
Brazil, however, is trying to show its progress, such as cutting the pace of Amazon deforestation in half in the past three years, and developing an energy matrix that is increasingly based on renewable sources, such as hydroelectric dams and crop-based fuels.
Its proposals focus on the creation of mechanisms, "in the context of the Convention" and not of the Protocol, that provide public policy incentives to reduce emissions, such as fighting deforestation and developing bioenergy, and a voluntary fund to reward countries that halt the loss of forests.
Despite the negative attitudes of the United States and other countries, including Japan, Australia and Canada, which want to replace Kyoto with a different treaty, Miguez is optimistic about defining a negotiating process before 2009.
Failure would leave the world adrift for a period that could prove fatal, considering that it was 13 years after the 1992 signing of the Climate Change Convention before the Kyoto Protocol took effect.
Argentina's Estrada Oyuela adds some hope because China and India, which have become major emitters of greenhouse gases due to their rapid economic growth and enormous populations, "are a little more receptive to making changes" in favour of stabilising the climate.
Without Brazil, China and India, "no effort will be effective," according to Suzana Kahn, another Brazilian member of the IPCC, expert in energy and transportation.
Because of their environmental weight, "they must play an active role in the international negotiations," said Kahn, who, as head of climate and carbon market issues for the Rio de Janeiro state government, coordinated a pioneering plan for mitigating and adapting to climate change, which will be presented in Bali.
If Brazil does not assume some commitments, it will undermine its leadership in the international climate negotiations, according to environmentalists like Fabio Feldman, who led the Brazilian Climate Change Forum and served as environment secretary for the state of Sao Paulo.
It is argued that Brazil could meet goals simply by enforcing one of its environmental policies: reducing deforestation, responsible for 75 percent of the country's carbon emissions.
But obligations for developing countries will only be acceptable once the wealthy nations comply with theirs, with a deadline set in Kyoto for 2012, and agree to new ones that are "much more significant in reduction of their emissions in the new regime to be negotiated," concludes Cuban expert Rivera.
(With reporting by Marcela Valente in Buenos Aires, Patricia Grogg in Havana, and Milagros Salazar in Lima. Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.) |
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