São Paulo – The high level segment of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP18) started this Tuesday (4th) in Doha, Qatar. The conference aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The main proposal at hand is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, whose negotiations have reached a stalemate.
For the time being, only countries accounting for a combined 15% of global emissions have committed to extending Kyoto. Such is the case with the European Union countries. New Zealand, on the other hand, has threatened to walk out of negotiations because it believes the Kyoto Protocol is "inoperative" and that it makes no sense to join an agreement unsigned by major emitters, Russia and Poland, in turn, want to either increase or maintain emissions in the second phase, because they have not emitted all they could during the preceding phase.
Signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the agreement set forth that signatory countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from 2008 to 2012, compared with 1990 levels. Negotiators from the 194 participating countries, and from this week on the ministers of those countries, have arrived in Qatar with the mission of negotiating the extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, though under new rules and with the participation of countries which were not required to adhere to rules on that occasion, such as China. The United States did not adhere to the protocol either.
The nations are now negotiating extending the agreement until 2020 because on that year, a new, more comprehensive treaty will enter into force to replace Kyoto. These are not the only interests threatening the extension of the protocol, which expires on December 31st this year. Other topics include forms of financing for developing ‘cleaner’ projects, intellectual property on new technologies, and education and knowledge transfer on cutting down emissions.
At the opening of the high-level meetings, the United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon said the challenge of cutting down greenhouse gas emissions concerns all countries, because the consequences will also affect all.
““Let us be under no illusion. This is a crisis, a threat to us all: our economies, our security and the well-being of our children and those who will come after,” Ki-Moon warned, before defending the continuation of the current treaty.
“The Kyoto Protocol remains the closest we have to a global, binding climate agreement. It must continue. It is a foundation to build on. It has important institutions, including accounting and legal systems, and the framework that markets sorely need. Its continuation on 1 January 2013 would show that governments remain committed to a more robust climate regime,” said Ki-Moon.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
