Last chance for a successful pact against global warming

03-02-2009 | FATIMA ASVAT

A shift in the US position has raised hopes for the UN-led Copenhagen meeting

Panama Star PANAMA. After an unsuccessful Kyoto Protocol, world leaders will face a final opportunity to agree on an adequate global response to climate change at a U. N. -led meeting in Copenhagen in December. And a sudden shift in the US position has raised hopes of a fruitful outcome this time around.

The 1997 agreement is believed by many to be badly flawed. Many signatory countries lag far behind their emissions targets, and the agreement was far too lenient with major polluters in the developing world like China and India.

But perhaps most significantly, the United States, the largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, refused to ratify the Protocol. And if the wealthiest and one of the most polluting countries in the world does not take the agreement seriously, what is to say anyone else would?

Renewed hope for an effective international accord against global warming rose within weeks of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, as the US radically shifted its position to now stand at the forefront of the international climate effort.

Obama’s 3.55-trillion-dollar budget unveiled by the president last Thursday outlines a cap-and-trade system which would limit emissions of greenhouse gases by manufacturers, and permit companies to trade the right to pollute to other manufacturers.

The program forces heavy polluters to buy credits from companies that pollute less, creating financial incentives to fight global warming, and pumping money into the Treasury purse to fund renewable energy programs.

And according to the New York Times, Mr. Obama’s chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, said last week that the United States would be involved in the negotiation of a new treaty — to be signed in Copenhagen in December — “in a robust way.”

The Kyoto Protocol was a narrow accord about greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Any new agreement, to be effective, would have to aim at reductions while also taking into account their effects on energy supplies and economies — especially in the midst of a global financial crisis.

Experts believe the treaty will have to include financial mechanisms and making good on longstanding promises to provide money and technical assistance to help developing countries cope with climate change.

For many, the world faces a final opportunity to respond to climate change in December when world leaders from about 190 countries come together to try to agree on a global framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"It is now 12 years since Kyoto was created. This makes Copenhagen the world's last chance to stop climate change before it passes the point of no return," European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told a climate conference in Budapest on Friday.

Will we stand up to the challenge?