CLIMATE CHIEF WARNS AGAINST 'TRAGIC' INACTION
By Jessica Daly
CNN
August 20, 2008

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LONDON - The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has described as "tragic" the lack of action on climate change by developed countries.

Rajendra Pachauri told CNN's Principal Voices program that there is a limited window of opportunity to stabilize the earth's climate and avert the worst impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures, melting polar icecaps and extreme weather events.

"If we allow things to continue unchanged and we don't take action today, it would destabilize human society," he warned.

The Nobel Peace laureate's comments come as more than a thousand representatives of governments, environmental organizations and research institutes gather today in Accra, Ghana to resume talks aimed at negotiating a new international accord to combat climate change.

The new agreement -- to be finalized in Copenhagen, Denmark by December 2009 -- will succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which is due to expire in 2012.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 developed countries committed to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent to 1990 levels by 2012. Despite initially signing the protocol, the U.S. refused to ratify it on the grounds that it unfairly burdened developed countries.

While developing countries -- including new economic powerhouses like China and India -- were exempt from obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, there is some hope that a new agreement might draw them in to the climate change process with incentives aimed at curbing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

But Dr Pachauri says a more enlightened view of the developing-versus-developed country situation is needed.

"Developing countries will do what they can, but it was clearly understood and laid down in the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 that the developed countries will take the first steps; frankly they've done nothing at all. And that's really tragic.

"We came up with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but it got ratified only in 2005. It took so long to give substance to something which had been agreed on in 1992."

While hard decisions aren't expected from the weeklong Accra talks, they will discuss treaty language which will likely be approved at the final climate change meeting for 2008 in Poznañ, Poland.

It's at this Poznañ meeting that countries will start discussing specific targets for reducing carbon emissions in line with the ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.

Dr Pachauri told CNN that halving greenhouse gas emissions will require great resolve by the international community.

"I hope that in the next year and a half -- and particularly in December 2009, when we hopefully will come up with an agreement on what to do beyond 2012 globally -- that we show a certain resolve and aspiration to do things that are required for the benefit of the human race."

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'CLOCK TICKING' ON GLOBAL WARMING: UN CLIMATE CHIEF
AFP
August 20, 2008

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Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN's top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got started here Thursday.

"There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"People in a burning house cannot afford to lose time in an argument," he said, citing an Ashanti proverb.

The Accra gathering must strive to "reach agreement on the rules and tools" that developed countries will use to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he told more than 1,600 delegates from 160 nations.

Ghana's President John Kufuor echoed the sense of urgency in his opening remarks, noting that his country was already suffering the consequences of global warming.

Rainfall in Ghana has decreased by 20 percent in three decades, and 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) of fertile agricultural land in the upper Volta Delta will be lost to rising sea levels and flooding if temperatures rise at their current pace, he said.

The expert-level meeting, which runs through August 27, is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed to adopting a binding climate accord no later than December 2009.

It is the last meeting ahead of a ministerial summit in Poznan, Poland in December where rich countries will be under intense pressure to nail down near-term commitments for reducing greenhouse gases.

The Group of Eight industrialised powers pledged to halve emissions by 2050, but critics say intermediate goals are needed.

"The real political commitment is short- and medium-term," Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, told delegates.

"We have to speed up the pace. The negotiations here in Accra must deliver concrete results" about what technologies will be used to cut emissions, she said.

Africa is arguably the continent most vulnerable to the potential ravages of climate change, which range from extreme drought to violent storms to rising sea levels.

De Boer challenged delegates to be "ambitious," and said if they failed Africa would continue, in terms of climate change, to be the "forgotten continent".

He insisted that rich countries step up financial assistance to help Africa with global warming.

African produces the fewest emissions, he pointed out, but will likely well pay the heaviest price.

De Boer and Kufuor underlined the threat of deforestation, which is destroying one of nature's most powerful natural buffers against global warming.

The world's forests -- which are disappearing at a rate of about 30 million hectares (74 million acres) per year -- soak up more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Governments need to focus on reducing emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation," and on how to reward countries that protect forests, said de Boer.

The problem is particularly acute in Amazonia, central Africa and Indonesia, experts note.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental group, called on the Accra meeting to adopt the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger."

"Progress on substance ... must be swifter, the level of ambition by both developed and developing countries higher, and the measures to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions stronger," said Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF's Global Climate Change Initiative.

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