德班气候变化大会

1、THOUSANDS of anxious environmentalists, hard-eyed negotiators and bemused journalists gathered in Durban this week for the UNs annual climate -change circus. Saving the planet, the main item on its agenda two years ago, in Copenhagen, was not uppermost in their minds. Saving the circus was: the fail

2、ure in Copenhagen to forge a binding agreement to mitigate the worlds carbon emissions could yet lead to a breakdown of the whole UN process in Durban.To avoid that, negotiators have until December 9th to reach three goals. Least dauntingly, they must nail down the details of initiatives agreed on i

3、n Cancu n last year, chiefly the Green Climate Fund. This aims to help poor countries curb their emissions and adapt to global warming. It is supposed to be stocked with some of the $100 billion that rich countries have promised poor ones by 2020.Little actual cash will be proffered in Durban: progr

4、ess will be limited to working out the details of the fUnds design, including the relative powers of donors and recipients, and to its possible role in wooing investment. Even this is contentious, as America wants a bigger role for the private sector. But such spats should prove surmountable. Alongs

5、ide progress on another promised institution, to spread green technology to poor countries, the fund is Durbans likeliest success.Ctiiina6.7 (99.7)United StatesThe big smokeGre&nhouse-gasemiE帅s*. JQ07, billion tonnes C0? equivalent (% mcretrjfJFrjffl 1997)Total:Rest of worldS.6UNFCCCEU27Russia 1,6md

6、ia1.4舀一今JapanU (5.6)Eiitludes Lj nd u 晃 rli 占呻电Much trickier will be reconciling the demands of developing countries for an extension of the UNs Kyoto protocol with the determination of most developed ones to bin it. The worlds only binding agreement to curb emissions has been a colossal failure. Si

7、nce it was negotiated in 1997 global emissions have risen by over a quarter, mostly in developing countries. The treaty does not curb their emissions, which are now 58% of the total; China alone is responsible for 23%. The second-biggest polluter, America, (with 20%) is also free to emit, as it has

8、notratified the treaty. Developed countries that did ratify Kyoto feel cheated. Japan and Russia have rejected a second round of emission-cutting under its aegis, after their current commitments expire at the end of 2012. Canada, which will hugely overshoot its Kyoto target, is reported to be consid

9、ering quitting the treaty altogether. “Kyoto is the past,” said its environment minister, Peter Kent, before setting out for Durban.This leaves the European Union as the only large industrial power willing to undertake a second five-year “commitment period”. But the EUs emissions account for only 14

10、% of the total, and its likely second commitment a 20% cut by 2020 would be no more than it is already bound to under European law. It might nonetheless appeal to developing countries, who appear less bothered about global warming than about maintaining the principle that they should be exempt from

11、rules to curb it. A delegate from a powerful developing country says that the politics of the negotiations are, unfortunately, “much more important” than climate change.Recent data meanwhile show how dismally the world is failing to deal with the problem. Rich and poor alike have accepted the somewh

12、at arbitrary principle that warming should not be allowed to exceed two degrees. But the UNs Environment Programme reckons that even if all countries honour their existing commitments, global emissions in 2020 would exceed the likeliest total consistent with that pledge by the equivalent of up to 11

13、 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. That is more than double the amount emitted by all the worlds cars, buses and trucks in 2005.The Europeans, who actually want to do something about the problem, have therefore attached a condition to their possible second commitment. In return for them, in effect, keep

14、ing Kyoto alive for another five years, they want all countries to pledge to negotiate a new agreement, to be completed by 2015. This pledgethe third big aspiration in Durbanwould imply that developing countries are willing to share the burden for cutting emissions, though their burden would be much

15、 less onerous than those imposed on rich states.China, India and other developing countries have already promised to cut the energy or carbon intensity of their expanding economies. They did so in Copenhagen; and their pledges were included in a provisional pact in Cancu n. Yet they have refused to

16、turn this into legally binding commitments; and they are unlikely to do so now. Their main concern is for their economies to grow rapidly, not least to help deal with the fallout of warming.Recent work by, among others, Michael Greenstone at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology backs that appro

17、ach. It shows that hot spells kill few people in air-conditioned America; but in India, where 300m have no access to electricity, the death toll is huge. Indias priority is to provide its people with electricity, and one day air-conditioners. That this will increase its emissions is less a problem f

18、or India than for the world. It therefore views any suggestion that it should be bound to curb its emissions as a threat.2020 visionSome sort of agreement is still possible. Developing countries, including China and India, have suggested they are willing to negotiate a new pact, to be concluded around 2020. This agreement, if it transpires, would be a broader version of the deal agreed in Cancun, including n