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165860
Fri, 03/04/2011 - 14:39
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https://www.oananews.org//node/165860
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U.N. climate head urges Japan not to oppose extending Kyoto pact
TOKYO, March 4 Kyodo - The head of the U.N. climate convention cautioned this week against Japan's opposition to setting a new phase of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to fight global warming, and urged opponents to discard their ''simplistic thinking.''
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in an interview with Kyodo News in Tokyo that while a new legally binding pact on combating global warming is out of reach this year, all countries should redouble their efforts to reach an agreement by thinking in a ''creative'' manner.
The remarks came as climate negotiators from about 30 countries and international organizations gathered in Tokyo for a two-day informal meeting through Friday to discuss ways to tackle global warming beyond 2012, when the five-year commitment period under the Kyoto pact will expire.
''I think we have to get away from this very simplistic thinking that the Kyoto Protocol, if it goes into a second commitment period, would mean that China and the United States don't do anything,'' Figueres said. ''That's just completely not the case because countries are not going to accept that.''
Under the protocol, developed countries are obliged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels over a five-year period from 2008, but Washington refused to ratify the pact, while Beijing, a developing country, has no reduction requirements.
While developing countries are calling for a new commitment period beyond 2012 under the existing framework, Japan says it will not agree to further cuts unless other major emitters, such as China and the United States, sign a binding agreement.
Figueres said that while all countries need to take on responsibilities because no country is immune to the impact of climate change, industrialized nations bear the primary responsibility as they have spent centuries contributing to the problem.
At a U.N. climate meeting late last year in Cancun, Mexico, Japan maintained its objection to setting a second phase of commitments, arguing that countries bound by the treaty now account for only 27 percent of global heat-trapping gas emissions. But it drew fire from other countries, particularly developing ones.
With the next round of climate talks scheduled for late this year in the South African city of Durban, Figueres said ''some very concrete thinking has to be given'' to a framework to be used by all countries.
''When we look at whatever framework countries are going to use for their enhanced mitigation efforts, they will also need predictability and certainty in the same way that the Kyoto Protocol provides,'' Figueres said, noting that the United States and China should join such a framework ''in some fashion.''
''We are expecting to hear some creative thinking on the part of countries, hopefully on the part of Japan also,'' she said.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in an interview with Kyodo News in Tokyo that while a new legally binding pact on combating global warming is out of reach this year, all countries should redouble their efforts to reach an agreement by thinking in a ''creative'' manner.
The remarks came as climate negotiators from about 30 countries and international organizations gathered in Tokyo for a two-day informal meeting through Friday to discuss ways to tackle global warming beyond 2012, when the five-year commitment period under the Kyoto pact will expire.
''I think we have to get away from this very simplistic thinking that the Kyoto Protocol, if it goes into a second commitment period, would mean that China and the United States don't do anything,'' Figueres said. ''That's just completely not the case because countries are not going to accept that.''
Under the protocol, developed countries are obliged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels over a five-year period from 2008, but Washington refused to ratify the pact, while Beijing, a developing country, has no reduction requirements.
While developing countries are calling for a new commitment period beyond 2012 under the existing framework, Japan says it will not agree to further cuts unless other major emitters, such as China and the United States, sign a binding agreement.
Figueres said that while all countries need to take on responsibilities because no country is immune to the impact of climate change, industrialized nations bear the primary responsibility as they have spent centuries contributing to the problem.
At a U.N. climate meeting late last year in Cancun, Mexico, Japan maintained its objection to setting a second phase of commitments, arguing that countries bound by the treaty now account for only 27 percent of global heat-trapping gas emissions. But it drew fire from other countries, particularly developing ones.
With the next round of climate talks scheduled for late this year in the South African city of Durban, Figueres said ''some very concrete thinking has to be given'' to a framework to be used by all countries.
''When we look at whatever framework countries are going to use for their enhanced mitigation efforts, they will also need predictability and certainty in the same way that the Kyoto Protocol provides,'' Figueres said, noting that the United States and China should join such a framework ''in some fashion.''
''We are expecting to hear some creative thinking on the part of countries, hopefully on the part of Japan also,'' she said.
