In December 1997 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Kyoto, Japan to discuss a treaty to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Over 10,000 people attended including 1,500 delegates from 160 countries, 3500 observers, and 4000 media people. The outcomes of the conference were disappointing but not surprising given the strength of industry opposition to an effective treaty. Although the European Union had been pushing for average reductions of 15% below 1990 levels, the average turned out to be little more than 5% and three countries were in fact granted approval to increase their emissions. For the treaty to be legally binding it has to be ratified by a minimum of 55 nations responsible for atleast 55% of emissions. A country which does not ratify the treaty, that is, get its government to formally agree to it, is not bound by it. The agreement provides enough loopholes and flexibility to ensure that countries like the US that have committed to reductions do not have to actually reduce their emissions. It may even enable "large covert increases in domestic emissions." Tradeable emissions let countries buy the rights to discharge emissions above their agreed target from countries that reduce their emissions beyond their agree targets. For example some countries in Eastern Europe are already emitting 30% less carbon dioxide than in 1990 because of economic decline and they may be happy to sell their rights to emissions in return for hard currency, with no net benefit to the planet. Another mechanism, Joint Implementation, enables countries like the US to offset their own emissions by providing energy efficient technologies to developing countries or by 'creating' environmental 'sinks' to absorb carbon dioxide, such as forests. For example, American Electric Power, which uses coal to generate electricity, has already pledged to preserve 2.7 million acres of a tropical rainforest in Bolivia in the hope that this will exempt it from having to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions which would be far more expensive. In Australia the government is hoping to avoid measures to curtail industry and energy-based emissions of carbon dioxide by decreasing the rate of land clearance. It won this concession along with an increase of 8% on 1990 levels of emissions through sheer obstinacy at the Kyoto conference. The Clinton administration signed the Kyoto Treaty at the Buenos Aires meeting in November 1998, despite heavy opposition from Senate which will have to approve it before it becomes legally binding in the US. The meeting itself achieved little apart from the adoption of a year 2000 deadline for working out mechanisms for meeting the Kyoto Treaty targets.  |
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