08 Sep 2007 - Sydney,
Australia – Leaders of the world's fastest
growing economies attending the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit rejected
attempts by Australia and the US to bypass
the United Nations in negotiations to reduce
climate damaging emissions, says WWF.
"The developing country members of
APEC have said clearly that the UN is the
place where a new climate change agreement
will be struck,” said Greg Bourne, CEO of
WWF-Australia.
"It is clear that Australia, the US,
and Canada must commit to real binding cuts
in emissions to enable post-2012 negotiations
in Bali to come to a fruitful conclusion.
Those leaders carry the responsibility for
taking such targets to Bali."
In December this year, government ministers
will meet in Bali, Indonesia, at a meeting
of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change to formally launch negotiations
that will conclude in 2009 with an agreement
on new binding, deeper cuts in heat-trapping
climate pollution.
"This APEC Summit made clear that
the UN framework is the right place to move
towards deeper emission reductions,"
said Diane McFadzien, international climate
policy expert at WWF.
"The agreement expresses support to
the most vulnerable countries to adapt to
climate change, but the financing can be
agreed only through an extension of the
Kyoto Protocol."
According to WWF, negotiations for a binding
post-2012 agreement must be launched in
Bali to conclude by 2009. To keep warming
well below the dangerous level of 2°C,
that agreement will need to ensure that
global emissions peak before 2020, and that
industrialized countries reduce their emissions
by at least 30% by 2020 from 11000 levels.
WWF expects leaders attending a high-level
climate change meeting on 24 September at
the UN headquarters in New York to welcome
the formal launch of the Bali negotiations.
Jacqui McArthur, Press Officer
WWF-Australia press officer
Martin Hiller, Communications Manager
WWF Global Climate Change Programme
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Developing nations refuse attempts to derail
UN climate change solutions
09 Sep 2007 - The Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney showed
that developing nations are not as easily
bullied on climate change issues as US President
George Bush or Australian Prime Minister
John Howard may have assumed.
The Sydney Declaration, heralded by the
Australian government as a success in meeting
its climate change agenda, was in fact a
slap in the face for the Australian and
US leaders.
Explicit in the declaration is an understanding
that the United Nations, and not APEC, is
the place to develop any roadmap for a post-Kyoto
future.
Australia, as the host of APEC, had put
climate change to the top of the forum's
agenda and had hoped for a declaration that
pushed for solutions suited to itself and
the US, outside the UN framework.
With the post-Kyoto Protocol up for discussion
in Bali, Indonesia, in December, both the
US and Australia had been keen to sidestep
the UN process. Both countries had planned
on APEC presenting a unified Pacific Rim
front that would have dealt a harsh blow
to global attempts to curb greenhouse gas
emissions.
Several days of debate and lobbying saw
the developing nations refusing to budge.
Rather than being bullied into simply agreeing
to essentially meaningless, aspirational
goals on suitable greenhouse gas emissions,
countries including China, Malaysia, Thailand
and the Philippines held firm to their belief
that the UN is the right forum to discuss
real emissions targets.
By demonstrating their faith in the UN
framework, developing nations have confirmed
that the Kyoto Protocol is far from redundant.
The end result of the APEC deliberations
is little more than a hollow statement glorifying
the vague notion of aspirational goals and
providing commitments to energy intensity
targets, or energy efficiencies.
The Sydney Declaration, far from being
a milestone, offers little.
But its weakness is also its strength.
By committing to no more than aspirational
goals, APEC has left the way open once again
for the real debate on climate change to
be heard at the UN.
The ball is now back in the court of Australia
and the US as the world waits for a commitment
from these nations to join other developed
countries in reducing their greenhouse gas
emissions.
In order to avoid catastrophic climate
change greenhouse gas emissions must fall
by 2015 and need to be reduced to 50% of
11000 levels by 2050.
The mood from the Sydney summit provides
hope for a way forward at the upcoming Bali
meeting of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), where 191 countries
will start to discuss emissions targets
for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol.
Diane Mcfadzien, Climate Policy Specialist
WWF South Pacific
