Dec 1, 2008, 11:35 GMT
Poznan, Poland - A UN climate conference opened Monday with calls for governments to look beyond the economic downturn, push for worldwide cuts in emissions linked to global warming and seal the deal within a year.
The difficult two-week meeting in Poznan, Poland, is meant to put rich and poorer countries on track for an accord to curb pollution from so-called greenhouse gases that leaders can approve in December 2009 in Denmark.
At stake is progress toward an accord that includes fast-growing emerging nations in emissions cuts for the first time and replaces the Kyoto Protocol, whose binding limits covered only developed nations. That pact expires in 2012.
'Delaying action now will only make future action more costly,' Yvo de Boer, the top UN climate official, told delegates from some 190 countries.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said this year's financial crisis would surely subside, but global warming won't.
'I feel confident that the financial crisis will be overcome,' he told the opening session. 'Climate change will only grow stronger if we do not act.'
The European Union, seeking to spur action by the rest of the world, has pledged to cut its emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 on its own - and by 30 per cent as part of a global agreement.
But the 27-nation bloc is split as Italy and ex-communist nations in Eastern Europe balk at details of an EU plan to auction pollution permits, which they say will make energy too expensive.
How rich nations can provide clean technology and financing to help poorer countries lower their emissions - mainly carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels - will be a key element at the talks and crucial to getting countries like China, India and Brazil aboard for a deal.
'The developed countries must show the way. They carry a special historical responsibility,' Fogh Rasmussen said. 'But we need an agreement of global scale to solve this challenge.'
The top UN climate official warned that delegates face tough work to keep talks on track for the ambitious plan, agreed by governments last year, to wrap up a deal by the end of 2009.
'The clock is ticking,' said de Boer, who heads the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 'Work needs to shift into higher gear.'
Since the November 4 US elections, president-elect Barack Obama has cheered environmentalists and many governments with his pledges to re-engage Washington in climate negotiations and push for investment in environmental technology.
'I am delighted to see that ... Obama is planning ambitious energy and climate policies as part of the solution to the economic slowdown,' Fogh Rasmussen said.
With the US poised for a more active role next year, this year's talks are complicated by the EU's squabbling over how to distribute fresh cuts in emissions that scientists say are warming Earth.
EU leaders hope to iron out the rift at a summit next week, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk highlighted the difficult array of clashing interests at the UN talks.
Tusk noted that Poland depends on heavily polluting coal for most of its energy, telling delegates that each country must 'be able to find the best road to the common goal' of saving the world's climate.
Many European leaders as well as Obama point out that promoting environmental technology and measures such as auctioning of emissions rights - something already under way in Europe - can help pay for the costs of curbing global warming.
'There is no contradiction between economic growth and ambitious climate policies,' Fogh Rasmussen said.
Latest UN data show that man-made emissions that trap heat in Earth's atmosphere rose between 2000 and 2006, with emerging nations leading the way.
Global warming is already blamed for shrinking polar icecaps and an increase in tropical storms. Future threats include growing water shortages in Africa, rising sea levels that threaten low-lying islands and coastal areas, and shrinking crop yields in tropical areas, scientists say.
In a landmark series of reports last year, a UN panel of scientists concluded that the world faces an average temperature rise of about 3 degrees Celsius this century if emissions continue to rise at the current pace.
If that happens, climate changes will likely be more dramatic than in the 20th century, the panel said. In all scenarios, poor people are expected to bear the brunt of climate change.
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)