INTERVIEW: You can't leave us alone on Kyoto, EU tells US and China

By Alvise Armellini Nov 23, 2011, 12:29 GMT

Brussels - The European Union is willing to commit to cut its carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions beyond 2012, but only if other major emitters such as the United States and China pledge to follow suit, the bloc's top climate change negotiator warns.

The extension of the United Nations Kyoto Protocol on climate change, whose first commitment period expires in December 2012, is one of the main topics of discussion for countries meeting in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9.

'We are open to take a second commitment period but there are clear conditions attached,' EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told dpa in Brussels ahead of the conference.

When they agreed last month on a common position for Durban, EU environment ministers stressed that unless new countries join the fray, the new Kyoto period would cover only 16 per cent of world emissions.

Canada, Japan and Russia have already signaled they want to drop out, while the US and China - which together are responsible for 40 per cent of global CO2 and were not bound by the first Kyoto period - have so far refused to join. China was exempt from reductions as a developing country and the US never ratified the treaty.

'Can we in the 21st century continue to have a system where a group of countries, representing less and less of global emissions, are obliged to make cuts, whereas a big group of countries, accounting for even more of global emissions are not?' Hedegaard said.

So far, only 'Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand and maybe a few more' are ready to join with the EU, she indicated. 'Others will have to commit to at least a road map' spelling out that they will commit to targets at a later stage.

Extending a Kyoto treaty that only covers a small group of developed countries would be a bridging measure until a more ambitious global deal - needed to limit temperature increases to 2 degrees centigrade over pre-industrial levels by the century's end - is secured.

Despite the challenge of changing US policy ahead of tough presidential elections in the US and an expected leadership change in Beijing, both in 2012, Hedegaard insisted that the EU was making headway.

'Only two years ago, to say that in a not too distant future all major economies should have the same kind of legal obligations ... well, you barely could say it without destroying the atmosphere in meetings,' the EU commissioner quipped.

But now 'more and more countries understand and accept and respect the European Union's position,' Hedegaard assured.

The commissioner recalled that after last year's UN conference in Cancun, the US' top negotiator, Todd Stern, said his country could sign up to new Kyoto targets if China was 'equally legally bound.'

Therefore 'a legally binding deal where everybody is equally legally bound, that should not be in contradiction with what the Americans said they want,' she insisted.

If attempts to bring around the US and China were to fail at Durban, 'we will have a very serious situation,' Hedegaard warned.

Despite scepticism about the chances of a breakthrough, after the failure of the 2009 Copenhagen summit that Hedegaard hosted as Danish climate minister, and the little progress in Cancun, the commissioner said there was no other option but to stick to the UN framework.

'What other forum would we have that could come to more progress? The answer is none,' she said. 'I have never been to a climate change conference where I achieve everything that I would have liked, but I also have never attended a conference where in the end we could not see substantial progress.'

She also acknowledged that in the midst of the eurozone crisis, EU focus on climate change had somewhat waned. 'It's clear that right now, if you are trying to form a government in Italy or Greece it's not the key issue.'

But it still makes sense to curb CO2 emissions because of job opportunities in the green economy and energy efficiency gains, she insisted. And despite the crisis, EU countries are 'by and large' delivering the climate change aid they pledged in 2010, she said.