UN talks keep Kyoto on track, but scant progress
Source: Reuters
(Recasts with end of talks) By Daniel Wallis and Gerard Wynn NAIROBI, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Environment ministers agreed on Friday to review the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol in 2008 but some delegates criticised a lack of firm action on global warming. After two weeks of talks in Nairobi, about 70 ministers said they would review the protocol, which runs to 2012, in what could be a prelude to widening the pact by 35 rich nations to include outsiders such as China and India. Ministers also agreed to steps to aid Africa and to promote funds for clean energies such as wind and hydro power to cut dependence on fossil fuels, under a scheme that could channel $1100 billion to developing nations by 2012. "We have made tremendous progress here in Nairobi," Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana, who presided at the 189-nation talks, said in a closing speech. "But there are yet many challenges ahead of us." He said the first such conference in sub-Saharan Africa had shown "Africa's 800 million people are in the front line" of future climate changes. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the talks did too little to combat what many delegates say is a warming caused by burning fossil fuels that could lead to famine, drought, heatwaves and rising seas. NOT ENOUGH "It's not enough, what we've reached in the conference," he said. "We have heard many things about national interests ... but relatively seldom about climate change". "We need to make sure that action follows urgently," said Jan-Erik Enestam, the Environment Minister of Finland which holds the European Union's rotating Presidency. He said rules for a new period of Kyoto should be finished by 2009. Many Kyoto backers favour a thorough review, reckoning it will show Kyoto's emissions caps are inadequate to slow rising temperatures. That could put pressure on outsiders to join. Poorer states say the rich must take the lead. The decision setting a 2008 review said it would lead to "appropriate action" -- holding out prospects of new cuts in greenhouse gases. But in an apparent contradiction, it also said it "shall not lead to new commitments for any party". U.S. President George W. Bush, who pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, says he has no plans to join a scheme he views as an economic straitjacket. "Our policy is working," to restrain growth in emissions of heat-trapping gases, Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs who led the U.S. delegation at the talks, told Reuters, ruling out caps on emissions. A key committee examining plans beyond 2012 also noted that scientists believe emissions of carbon dioxide "must be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000, in order to stabilise their concentrations in the atmosphere". Steve Sawyer, of environmental group Greenpeace, said it was the first time such deep cuts were acknowledged by U.N. talks. Conservation group WWF said the meeting had achieved "one small step forward for Kyoto". But it said delegates had failed to seize a chance to promise even deeper cuts beyond 2012. Ministers also put off a debate until 2007 on a Russian proposal to let new countries sign up for cuts. Kyoto obliges rich countries to cut emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto nations account for 30 percent of all emissions.
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