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Climate change negotiators see no major Durban deal

Sean Mattson :

Global climate change negotiators on Friday concluded their last round of discussions before next month's U.N. convention in Durban, South Africa with faint hope of extending the Kyoto Protocol beyond next year.
But while negotiators see no chance for a sweeping deal to control greenhouse gas emissions, they say that the talks could yet lay the groundwork for a binding climate deal that could include the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States.
"Governments are really committed to starting a process toward that (new pact) and that includes the United States and China," Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, told Reuters on Friday.
"How they will get there, with what speed they will be able to get there, that still remains to be seen," she said.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a global pact to curb greenhouse gasses, ends next year.
Kyoto was meant to stem climate change but obliged only developed nations to reduce emissions. The United States never signed the deal and developing nations have since become major emitters.
Nations including Russia, Canada and Japan have said they will not sign on for another commitment period when the current one expires.
The European Union is the only major emitter that has expressed willingness to continue committed to Kyoto, but EU negotiators say there is no point in signing a global agreement that would only cover around 15 percent of emissions. "To really fight global warming, we need 100 percent of emissions being covered," Tomasz Chruszczow, a European Union negotiator, told a press conference on Friday. The United States is still unlikely to sign any agreement and major emerging nations want assurance a UNFCCC agreement on green finance is in place before committing themselves to a binding agreement, negotiators said. Seven days of talks in Panama were marked by assertions by developing nations that industrialized countries were blocking progress on the Green Climate Fund, envisioned as $100 billion in annual finance for poor countries to address climate change.
A draft text on long-term finance was released on Friday that climate discussion experts said will guide developed nations toward identifying capital for the empty fund in Durban. "It's really encouraging that we got this text in Panama," said Tim Gore, a climate change adviser with aid group Oxfam who credited the European Union with moving the issue forward.
Before Durban, a UNFCCC committee will hold a final discussion on the fund's framework while the G20 is expected to discuss green finance plans at its next meeting. But there is little expectation that a binding deal on emissions will come from Durban, many negotiators and veteran climate talk observers said.
Backers of a post-Kyoto emissions pact including Australia and Norway -- countries that recently presented a new proposal to rescue climate talks -- seek a binding agreement by 2015.
AP from Brussels adds: Those who doubt the earth's climate is changing are a diminishing breed in Europe, according to a new survey released Friday. It shows large majorities in the European Union see climate change as a very serious problem - and fighting it as an opportunity to create jobs and boost the economy.
Overall, EU residents see climate change as the second most serious problem facing the world, after poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water, which were taken together as a single issue.
The EU's climate change commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, called the survey encouraging.
"It's a rather strong call from European citizens to their political leaders. ... The people of Europe are really concerned about climate change. They see strong economic opportunities in tackling the challenge, and they expect us to continue to take ambitious and concrete action," Hedegaard said.
And, in what was likely an oblique reference to the U.S., she said, "Considering that in some countries there is still this debate whether climate change is happening at all, it is really reassuring to see that the European public understands the gravity of the climate challenge."
The survey showed that 68 percent of the people in the European Union consider climate change a "very serious problem," up from 64 percent in 2009. All told, 89 percent of Europeans consider the problem either "very serious" or "fairly serious."
And the poll found that an overwhelming 78 percent of EU citizens said fighting climate change could help create jobs and help the economy, up from 63 percent two years ago. The proportion of people who believed that was over two-thirds in every one of the 27 EU countries. Sixty-eight percent of those interviewed supported basing taxation to a greater extent on energy use. Hedegaard said that should show politicians they have support for green taxation - "relatively more on what we burn, relatively less what we earn."
The survey was conducted in June by a consortium called TNS Opinion & Social at the request of the European Commission. Nearly 27,000 people were interviewed in person, in all the EU countries. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percent.

(Source:Yahoo News)