UN Climate Talks Stalled
    
  By Arthur Max
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 9, 2001; 5:31 AM

MARRAKECH, Morocco –– Talks at the U.N. climate conference stalled early
Friday, ahead of a deadline for concluding a legal text defining action to
curtail global warming, delegates said.

Negotiations went well past midnight, but ended in deadlock between a group
of industrial countries and the rest of the more than 160 nations attending
the conference.

Five issues remained to be resolved, said the delegates, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

Negotiations were resuming early Friday, the last day of the scheduled
two-week meeting, and the conference chairman warned the time limit will not
be extended into Saturday. Previous meetings had stretched well past midnight
of the final day.

The conference objective is to write the rules for implementing the 1997
Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which calls on 39 industrial countries to
limit or reduce the emission of greenhouse gases – primarily carbon dioxide
from industry and cars – blamed for raising the Earth's temperature.

The accord assigns each country a target, but sets an average 5.2 percent
emission reduction from 1990 levels, to be achieved by 2012.

A group of developing countries drafted an eight-point compromise working
paper for negotiations that began late Thursday.

The industrial countries, led by Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia, said
five points were unacceptable, but the other countries said the document had
to be accepted as an all-or-nothing package, delegates said.

The meeting broke up for ministers to consult with their governments by
telephone.

The United States was not part of the negotiations. It renounced its
signature on the protocol in March, calling the treaty unfair and
economically unworkable.

The contentious points concerned whether countries that fail to meet their
targets will still be eligible to use "flexible mechanisms," which are
designed to make it easier for them to achieve the required reductions. Those
mechanisms include being able to buy credits from other countries which have
more than met their own targets.

"I am not optimistic or pessimistic. We are here to negotiate and be tough,"
the head of the European delegation, Belgian Environment Minister Olivier
Deleuze, said Thursday, as the serious negotiations began.

For the first time Thursday, conference president Mohamed Elyazghi mentioned
the possibility of failure when he said Friday's closing date was final.

"We hope it will be a success, but if it will be a failure, it will be
declared on Friday," he told a news conference.

Disputed issues included reporting and verifying carbon emissions and
establishing inventories of forests and range land. Under the Kyoto
provisions, countries can earn credits by expanding these "carbon sinks," but
it was not clear how baselines would be set.

Scientists say global warming already is causing glaciers to melt and rain
patterns to shift. Over the next century, temperatures could rise as much as
43 degrees, leading to more intense storms, droughts and a potentially
disastrous rise in sea levels.

To take effect, the Kyoto agreement must be endorsed by 55 countries,
including those emitting 55 percent of greenhouse gases in 1990. Without the
United States, which is responsible for about one-fourth of the world's
man-made carbon dioxide emissions, ratification needs the support of
virtually every other industrial country.

© 2001 The Associated Press

From Alliance to Save Energy:
Energy Bill—Will It or Won’t It?

As the days tick off and Thanksgiving approaches, it is still unclear
whether the Senate will take up an energy bill this year.  Republicans have
turned up the pressure and vowed to try to attach an energy bill to whatever
vehicle they can.  Democrats, under the leadership of Majority Leader Tom
Daschle (D-SD), continue methodically to assemble a bill.  Sen. Frank
Murkowski (R-AK) claims that Daschle doesn't want to bring up a bill because
he would lose on the issue of drilling for oil in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.  Daschle, whose bill is expected to include significant
provisions to increase automobile fuel economy, as well as tax credits for
energy-efficient technologies in turn, has taken the GOP to task for holding
up appropriations bills and other important business that must be done
before the Senate can get to energy.

Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Alliance
Chair Senator Bingaman acknowledged the long odds against the passage of an
energy bill this year to reporters covering the Alliance’s Energy Efficiency
Summit.  But, with the Senate now expected to stay past Thanksgiving to
resolve conflicts over appropriations, airport security, and the economic
stimulus, nothing is certain.

Stay abreast of energy policy at:
www.ase.org/policy

Reuters article on delay of energy legislation:
dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011025/pl/energy_congress_dc_2.html

Washington Times article on GOP’s plans to push energy legislation through
congress:
www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011108-720355.htm

Contact the Alliance Policy team:
David  Hamilton: mailto:dham@ase.org
Kara Rinaldi: mailto:krinaldi@ase.org
Allen Stayman: mailto:astayman@ase.org

Global warming to hit key food crops - UN agency

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

      MARRAKESH, Morocco - Harvests of some of the world's key food crops
could drop by up to 30 percent in the next 100 years due to global warming,
a U.N. agency said.
      The grim prediction was made by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) in a document released in Marrakesh which hosts a
U.N.-sponsored climate change conference.

      The report said scientists have found "evidence that rising
temperatures, linked with emissions of greenhouse gases, can damage the
ability of vital crops such as wheat, rice and maize."

      New studies indicate that yields could fall by as much as 10 per cent
for every one degree Celsius rise in areas such as the Tropics.

      It said that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the
U.N. team of scientists that advise governments, estimate that average
global temperatures in the Tropics could climb by up to three degrees
Celsius by 2100.

      According to U.N. scientists, current climate models predict a global
warming of about 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2100.

      The UNEP report said a second group of the IPCC found that key cash
crops such as coffee and tea in some of the major growing regions will also
be vulnerable over the coming decades to global warming.

      "They fear that desperate farmers will be forced into higher, cooler,
mountainous areas intensifying pressure on sensitive forests and threatening
wildlife and the quality and quantity of water supplies," it said.

      The findings on staple food crops came from researchers at the
Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

      "Billions of people across the tropics depend on crops such as rice,
maize and wheat, for their very survival," the report quoted UNEP Executive
Director Klaus Toepfer as saying.

      "These new findings indicate that large numbers are facing acute
hunger and malnutrition unless the world acts to reduce emissions of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases," he added.

      Story Date: 8/11/2001

     
© Reuters News Service 2001

FAIR USE NOTICE  
  This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always
been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such
material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice
issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For
more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If
you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own
that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.

Return to News Home

Return to Climate Change Campaign Home