Kerry: China will follow America on climate
China has committed to follow the U.S. and impose mandatory reductions on global warming gases if America, the world's biggest polluter, acts first, Senator John Kerry said after meeting with Chinese representatives.
"We have to do a 'follow us,' not a 'you first,' Kerry said of America's leadership role during a telephone news conference in Washington today (12/11/07). "If we do a 'follow us,' it's not going to happen.... up until now our absense has been an excuse for a lot of countries to not do everything they could do."
The Massachusetts Democrat and former Presidential candidate recently flew back from Bali, Indonesia, where he was the only member of U.S. Congress to participate in talks on global warming with leaders from around the world. The Bush administration's chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, is talking with dozens of other officials with the stated goal of developing a plan for what the world should do about climate change after the 1997 Kyoto protocol expires in 2012.
Although European nations, Japan and other countries signed the 10-year-old Kyoto agreement to impose modest limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, America and China did not sign.
And now these two economic giants remain obstacles to the next phase of global action on reducing the pollution, said Kerry. Other countries, especially in Europe, take the issue more seriously. "I picked up an increased sense of urgency from the scientists and a strong consensus to have a mandate that comes out of Bali that is strong broad and clear and adheres to the science, and regrettably our country is aligned with very few couties, including Sauda Arabia and Canada, which are really restraining that effort," Kerry said today
"They seem to be limiting the conference to its most narrow purpose, a road map of the most limited kind rather than a road map that etablishes a legacy for the Bush adminstration," Kerry said. "It's an opportunity that has a potential to be missed."
Kerry noted that China -- which doesn't have a very green reputation -- in some ways has already been more progressive than the U.S., for example by creating more mass transit and imposing a 36 mpg fuel efficiency requirement on their vehicles. The U.S Congress is only now debating increasing fuel efficiency standards to 35 mpg by 2020, and it's not clear this will pass.
Earlier this year, the Bush administration argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it doesn't want to use its authority under federal clean air laws to regulate greenhouse gases. One reason is the administration does't want to hurt American industries, or impose regulations that competitors in China, India and other rising countries do not face.
Meanwhile, Maryland has joined with 11 other Northeastern States in forming an alliance to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from power plants through a regional "cap and trade" system that penalizes polluters and rewards clean businesses. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley appointed an advisory task force, that has recommended that the state slash its global warming pollution by 90 percent by 2050 -- among the most ambitious goals in the country.
In the U.S. Senate, the committee that handles environmental legislation recently voted to advance a bill introduced by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner that would create a national "cap and trade" system in the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
Here are some recent report from the Associated Press on what's going on with international negotiations in Bali:
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia - In a largely symbolic duel over numbers, the United States on Monday resisted efforts at the U.N. climate conference to suggest that upcoming negotiations consider a specific range of targets for sharp cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
A proposed text for the Bali conference's final document notes — in a nonbinding way — a widely accepted view that reductions of 25 to 40 percent in richer nations' emissions would be required by 2020, and even deeper cuts later, to head off the worst of global warming.
"It's important to give a clear signal that that's where industrialized countries intend to go," the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters.
The European Union, which pushed for this mention of potential targets, has itself committed to 20 to 30 percent reductions below 1990 levels by 2020.
But the chief U.S. negotiator said that, because of "many uncertainties," raising such specific numbers would limit the scope of future talks.
"To start with a predetermined answer, we don't think is an appropriate thing to do," Harlan Watson said.
The U.S. is expected to win out, since Bali's decisions require consensus, and the final "Bali roadmap" is expected to be what has been long anticipated — a vague, broad mandate for two years of negotiations on an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
The 1997 pact requires 36 industrial nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other industrial, transportation and agricultural gases blamed for global warming by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels in the next five years.
The U.S. is the only major industrial nations to reject Kyoto. President Bush contended the emissions cuts would harm the U.S. economy, and should have been imposed on China, India and other fast-growing poorer economies.
The rest of the world hopes to enlist the United States in the next, post-Kyoto phase of internationally binding greenhouse-gas reductions. The change in U.S. administrations after next November's presidential election is expected to introduce a new attitude on climate change.
The talks here, in the second of two weeks, are expected to intensify with Tuesday's arrival of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has made climate his top priority, and Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who reversed his country's stand and ratified the Kyoto Protocol last week.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a longtime supporter of action on climate change, flew into Bali for a day's rapid-fire meetings Monday, at which he told delegates he expects the January 2009 change at the White House to end the U.S. isolation on climate.
In an Associated Press interview, Kerry said he favored the mention of the 25-to-40 percent target range in the document to be adopted here Friday.
"I believe you need to be relatively specific in the context of what Kyoto has already set out," he said.
A spokeswoman for the main coalition of environmental groups here viewed the numbers dispute as central. "This will show whether governments are serious or not," said Jennifer Morgan.
But the 25-to-40-percent reference was included only in the nonbinding preamble of the "draft decision," and not in the decisional paragraphs, where such numbers would impose an obligation on negotiators to limit their discussions to that range.
In fact, the environmentalists' daily bulletin in Bali commented that it "believes that these numbers belong in the operative part of the text, not in the preamble."
The proposed text also includes a vague reference to emissions reductions by developing countries — the most important of which are big emitters China and India. In the upcoming negotiations, the willingness of such fast-developing nations to rein in the growth of their emissions will be key to winning agreement to deeper, binding reductions by richer nations.
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Report from today:
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BALI, Indonesia (AP) -- Delegates at the U.N. climate conference struggled to agree Tuesday on whether they will call on rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by specific amounts, and the U.N. chief warned that the human race faces oblivion if it fails to confront global warming.
Ban Ki-moon, who is presiding over the final days of a conference aimed at setting an agenda and deadline for talks on a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, urged quick action as negotiators haggled over wording that would be acceptable to all.
A version of the revised text obtained by The Associated Press included guidelines for industrialized countries to cut emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent overall by 2020 -- a range that is sure to anger the United States, which has repeatedly said it opposes specific target ranges.
The document also contained a new mention of ''quantified national emission limitation and reduction commitments'' for industrialized countries.
Ban said the time to act was now.
''The situation is so desperately serious that any delay could push us past the tipping point, beyond which the ecological, financial and human costs would increase dramatically,'' the U.N. secretary-general told delegates.
''We are at a crossroad,'' he added. ''One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear.''
Talks at the conference, now in its second week, stepped up Tuesday with the arrival of Ban and Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who signed onto the Kyoto Protocol just last week. Former Vice President Al Gore was to arrive Wednesday, two days after picking up his Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.
The latest revision of the document also called on negotiators of the future climate pact to consider ''measurable and reportable national mitigation actions'' by developing countries -- a nod to demands by the United States and others that up-and-coming economies such as China take on commitments to curb pollution.
The draft will be the object of hard negotiations in coming days. The United States has supported only voluntary emissions targets, and was likely to oppose including the word ''commitment'' -- which was not in a previous draft -- from the final decision.
Developing nations have argued wealthy countries should take the first step in battling global warming because historically they have caused the problem. The mention of ''action'' by poorer countries was likely to attract their opposition.
The latest draft included dozens of changes from the earlier version, suggesting that negotiators were far from agreement on the final wording. In past years, the last day of talks on the declaration have dragged on to the early hours of the next day.
Delegates and environmentalists have publicly sparred over the inclusion of emissions guidelines in recent days.
The United States, the only major industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, argues it is too early in the negotiation stage to put specific targets or emissions cuts guidelines in the Bali document. Negotiations for a post-Kyoto pact are to last at least two years.
The European Union, developing countries and environmentalists, however, have rallied strenuously in favor of including general goals in the Bali declaration.
Stavros Dimas, the European commissioner for environment, said deep emissions cuts were crucial to preventing a devastating increase in global temperatures. The European Union has committed itself to 20 percent to 30 percent reductions below 1990 levels by 2020.
''We need this range of reductions by developed countries,'' Dimas said Tuesday. ''Science tells us that these reductions are necessary. Logic requires that we listen to science.''
Australia, which embraced the Kyoto pact after years of opposition, has shied away from supporting the emissions goals, saying it must await the conclusion of a study next year.
''Our long-term target ... to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 60 percent by 2050 against 2000 levels is an ambitious target,'' said Prime Minister Rudd. ''We will establish a proper and methodological basis ... to determine an interim target.''
Canada and Japan also oppose inclusion of the suggested figures.
The struggle over targets coincided with the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Kyoto accord on Dec. 11, 1997, in Japan. The U.N. cut a giant birthday cake to mark the occasion.
The pact requires 36 industrial nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other industrial, transportation and agricultural gases blamed for global warming by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels in the next five years. President Bush contends the emissions cuts would harm the U.S. economy, and should have been imposed on China, India and other fast-growing poorer economies.
Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita, whose country is having difficulty meeting its Kyoto targets, referred to these troubles at the pact's ''birthday party'' in Bali.
''It's only 10 years old yet, it's still a child,'' he said. ''At the age of 10, children can be quite difficult, and so it is with the Kyoto Protocol.''
Comments
Mother Jones has just published its Jan/Feb '08 cover story--"The Last Empire: Can the world survive China's headlong rush to emulate the American way of life?"--online, and I though you might find it useful to your future reporting on the subject. You'll find the article here:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/the-last-empire.html
I would also call your attention to the list of jaw-dropping statistics pulled from the
article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/china-eats-the-world.html
I've pasted in a detailed release below.
Richard Reynolds
Communications Director
Mother Jones magazine
415/321-1740
reynolds@motherjones.com
The Ecological Price of China's Economic Miracle Mother Jones cover story details global environmental toll http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/the-last-empire.html
In "The Last Empire," Mother Jones' January 2008 cover story, reporter Jacques Leslie combines a firsthand account of rampant pollution and desertification in China with a jaw-dropping survey of the global consequences of that country's economic boom. The question, as posed by the article's subtitle: Can the world survive China's rush to emulate the American way of life?
Leslie reports that China consumed more coal in 2006 than the United States, Russia, and India combined-and opens a new coal-fired power plant every four to seven days.
Sulfur dioxide and other pollutants from these plants account for the premature deaths of more than 400,000 Chinese each year and cause acid rain not only in China, but in Korea, Japan, and the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to both coal and cars, China's nitrogen- oxide emissions have climbed 48 percent in five years, enough to help continuously raise respiratory-system-inflaming ozone levels along the U.S. West Coast.
The effects of China's wood-product industries are similarly global. China is the world's leading manufacturer of wood products, feeding not only a booming domestic market but the demand for furniture and flooring in Europe and America. In the process, China has become the world's largest importer of timber, much of it illegally logged from other parts of Asia and Africa. China's largest source of wood is Russia, where an estimated half of all logging is illegal. The rate of deforestation in nonindustrial Indonesia, where illegal logging has reached 80 percent of the total timber harvest, places the country third in the world among CO2 emitters, after China and the U.S.
As a result of desertification, China now rivals North Africa as the world's leading producer of cross-border dust. In April 2001 a dust storm centered over Inner Mongolia brought 50,000 metric tons of dust to the U.S.-two and a half times what U.S. sources typically produce in a day.
For a comprehensive list of statistics drawn from the article, visit www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/china-eats-the-world.html.
China has reached these dubious milestones largely because, when the country began its turn toward capitalism in the late 1970s, it emulated the American high-consumption economic model, including sprawl development, private automobile ownership, and highly energy-consumptive practices, reports Mother Jones. Recently China passed the U.S. as the globe's largest producer of greenhouse gases. Because its cumulative CO2 emissions are still less than a third (and current per-capita emissions less than a fifth) of those of the United States, China argues that developed countries must be first to counter global warming. The failure of the U.S. to model environmental sanity has given China an excuse to continue prioritizing rampant growth over sustainable development.
Leslie reports that many of the best ideas for a more sustainable economic path are already getting a tryout in China, thanks in part to the more than 2,000 environmental groups, domestic and international, that have established offices in China. But virtually all are pilot projects, dwarfed by the immensity of the problems they take on.
Posted by: Richard Reynolds | December 12, 2007 4:18 PM