BRING OUR VOICES
BACK
Industry Dominates Climate
Discussions
The fifth conference of parties (COP-5)
to the UN Climate Change Convention took
place from 25 October to 5 November 1999.
Friends of the Earth groups made up one of
the largest NGO delegations in Bonn, with
about 20 activists from over 12 countries.
Yet despite considerable successes achieved
by NGO activities in Bonn, many important
decisions were prepared in a fast-track
manner for final adoption at the sixth COP
next year.
Several ministers referred to Rio Plus
Ten, the UN conference in 2002 marking the
ten year anniversary of the Rio Earth
Summit, as the target for entry into force
of the Kyoto Protocol (see LINK 82). If
this timeline is to be achieved however,
countries will have had to work out the
implementation details of the Protocol by
the next COP in November 2000. In addition
to the seemingly endless squabbles between
the EU, the US, the G-77 countries and
China, there are countless other alarm
bells and danger signals. As Charles
Feinstein of the World Bank put it at an
informal meeting, "Businesses have really
started leading the negotiations."
Industry Running the Show
Negotiators from industrialized
countries have apparently forgotten all
about their responsibilities for reducing
fossil fuel emissions as implied in their
first five-year commitment. Instead, both
the use of ecosystems as carbon sinks and
the new mechanisms of emissions trading and
joint implementation - which among other
things allow permits to be purchased - have
turned the Protocol into a free ticket for
increased emissions by the North. Industry
is of course delighted with the creation of
this new global bubble economy supported by
the trading of emissions and the use of
forests, wetlands, agricultural lands and
other ecosystems as carbon sinks.
From a non-commercial perspective
however, there are many problems with these
mechanisms. Deforestation and climate
change are the greatest killers of forests.
In the coming decades, it is anticipated
that forests around the world will turn
into enormous sources of greenhouse gases.
Storage of carbon in ecosystems is only
temporary: when forests die, they release
carbon back into the atmosphere. And as
global temperatures rise and plant
respiration increases, the release of CO
2
from dying trees will
accelerate exponentially. While scientists
are attempting to calculate the impacts of
this positive feedback, we are witnessing
intensified storms, drought, flood, and
fires around the world. Unless the Protocol
returns the focus to domestic emission cuts
and penalizes deforestation, the remaining
forests are unlikely to survive into the
next century.
Re-entering the Dinosaur Age
Despite its extremely weak emissions
targets, the Protocol process is
nonetheless creating new trends in domestic
energy policy. For example, several
countries have already announced their
intentions to introduce national emissions
trading systems. Amongst other problems,
these systems will provide a big boost to
the dinosaur nuclear power industry, which
claims that a new reactor can produce the
same amount of energy as a fossil fuel
plant while emitting on average 30 million
fewer tonnes of CO
2
.
Given the fact that emissions reductions
can bring some US$20-30 per tonne on the
international market, this is highly
profitable business for the nuclear sector.
A further bonus is provided through new
nuclear project financing mechanisms under
the Protocol. At COP-5, NGOs successfully
lobbied several ministers, including those
from Germany and Indonesia, to speak out
against the crediting of nuclear projects.
But unless the environmental community
becomes more vocally opposed to this
particular technology, it will remain as a
possible item in the emissions trading
market.
Thanks to the large amount of sinks and
hundreds if not thousands of
permit-generating projects in developing
and Central and Eastern European countries,
industrialized countries may no longer need
to take any domestic action to cut their
own emissions. Two years ago when the Kyoto
Protocol was being drafted, NGOs and
certain governments worked hard to make
industrialized countries accountable for
their emissions. Taxation of polluters,
reform of subsidies, promotion of renewable
energy technology, and a shift from
carbon-intensive modes of transport like
aviation to less polluting ones: our wish
list included domestic actions beneficial
both for the local economy and for the
environment. Since then, we have witnessed
the hijacking of the Protocol by business
interests, and domestic action has been put
out with the trash.
Moreover, less action taken by northern
governments at home means that southern
people - who are not even responsible for
climate change - have more problems to deal
with. On top of this, destructive oil
exploration, deforestation and genetically
engineered monoculture plantations are on
the rise in developing countries. The
voices of the resistance movement across
the world must provide an urgent wake-up
call to the politicians in the fancy
convention facilities with their heads
buried in piles of bracketed texts.
There are UN climate meetings in June
and September 2000, as well as a series of
intersessional workshops which will give us
some ideas about the final shape of the
Protocal at the sixth conference of
parties. COP-6 will take place in the
Hague, the Netherlands, in the backyard of
the FoEI Secretariat! The final question we
must consider before facing this sixth
climate summit is whether or not we should
support the ratification of the Protocol if
it fails to include emission reductions for
industrialized countries and does
incorporate nuclear technology, plantations
and other perverse projects. Climate change
won't wait for our inaction, so some tough
decisions must be made quickly.
Yuri Onodera, FoE Japan
