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U.S. cold shoulders climate summit Montreal conference lays ground for extending Kyoto Protocol from 2012 to 2050, U.S. agrees to non-binding talks going forward Gary Park Petroleum News Canadian Contributing Writer
The United States found itself almost alone among 190 nations who spent two weeks in Montreal until Dec. 10 working on ways to strengthen commitments among industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
At one point, U.S. delegates walked out of the conference, refusing to accept mandatory targets or discuss measures to reduce emissions under a United Nations framework.
They eventually returned after a direct appeal by Britain and signed up for non-binding talks on long-term measures to tackle climate change.
The thrust of the conference was to lay the ground work for developing environmental protection plans to regulate energy use worldwide by extending the Kyoto Protocol from 2012 to 2050.
In the end, British Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett described the agreement to work on new Kyoto targets as a “diplomatic triumph.”
She said it would be a “great pity” if the United States refused to join others in moving the debate forward “because there is such a widespread acceptance of the proposals on the table.” U.S. accused of not moving forward “The United States has signaled quite clearly that they’re really not interested in moving forward with the rest of the world,” said Morag Carter, director of the climate change program at the David Suzuki Foundation.
She said the decision to negotiate a new round of cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol ends its first phase in 2012 “provides a really significant framework for moving forward.”
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who made a last-minute plea for action on global warming when it seemed the conference was about to disintegrate, said: “There’s no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities.
“It’s crazy for us to play games with our children’s future,” he said.
Clinton, who was frequently applauded by thousands of delegates, said President George W. Bush’s administration is “flat wrong” in arguing that reducing emissions would damage the U.S. economy.
He said a “serious disciplined effort” to develop energy-saving technologies would allow the United States to “meet and surpass Kyoto targets in a way that would strengthen and not weaken our economies.” Bush favors voluntary approach Bush has formally renounced the Kyoto treaty, preferring a voluntary approach rather than global negotiations that set fixed targets.
The United States, which is responsible for almost 25 percent of world emissions, was accused by Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin of failing to demonstrate a global conscience and being in denial about global warming, although he was later forced to admit that the United States has a better record of lowering its emissions than Canada.
A United Nations report shows that Canada, which has pledged to cut its annual emissions to 596 million metric tons over the 2008-2012 period, actually spewed 740 million metric tons in 2003, 24.2 percent more than in 1990, while the U.S. limited its increase since 1990 by 13.3 percent.
But the bulk of Canada’s emissions stem from its electricity and petroleum industries, which export up to 60 percent of their production to the United States.
Alberta, the dominant oil and gas producing province, accounts for 31.2 percent of Canada’s emissions, followed by Ontario at 27.9 percent.
However, the federal government unveiled a C$10 billion program in April to use an array of subsidies and regulatory standards to enforce targeted reductions over five years.
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