Climate change

When EU leaders met in Brussels earlier this month (8-9 March) they made a bid to set the agenda for the next round of climate change negotiations.

They committed themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, but they promised a greater reduction, 30%, if "other developed countries commit themselves to comparable emissions reductions" and if economically more advanced developing countries also contributed to greenhouse gas reductions.

The European Council "invites these countries to come forward with proposals for their contribution to the post-2012 agreement", the summit concluded.

The significance of "post-2012" is that there is already in place an international agreement which governs emissions up to 2012, the celebrated Kyoto Protocol. That sets emissions-reduction requirements for the period 2008-2012 ie, industrialised countries which have made emissions reduction commitments need to ensure that their average emissions over the five-year period meet Kyoto Protocol targets.

But even before the first Kyoto accounting period opens next year, the EU is pressing for rules to govern emissions after 2012. Meeting under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Montreal in December 2005, countries agreed that there should be a successor regime to Kyoto, but quite what form that might take is still open for debate.

The EU’s aim is that the next round of international climate change talks, which will take place in Bali in December 2007, will launch formal negotiations for a post-2012 round. The EU will be looking for international agreement in Bali on the terms of the negotiations - deep emissions cuts, how they should be achieved and an end-date for the talks. The EU wants to set an end-date of 2009. Al Gore, the former US vice-president who is a flag-waver for climate change action in the US, was arguing last week that 2009 was unrealistic, given the presidential election cycle. He said 2010 was more likely.

The US has famously not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol commitments and one of the EU’s chief objectives is to tie the US into the post-2012 regime. Also at stake in the next round will be getting commitments from the next tier of developing industrialised countries, which at least includes China, Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia.

A big issue in the talks, most glaring in the case of Brazil and Indonesia, will be how to put a value on forests and how to provide incentives to stop deforestation.

The road between now and Bali, will be marked by a series of interim milestones. The working groups of the International Panel on Climate Change are publishing a series of reports, the second of which will come out next week (6 April) (see facing page). The scientific evidence in that report will be seized upon by EU politicians to argue their case ahead of the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, on 6-8 June. Talk about climate change has been plentiful in recent months. The challenge for the EU now is to deliver on its own commitments to reduce emissions and to wrest further commitment to action from the EU’s international partners.

When EU leaders met in Brussels earlier this month (8-9 March) they made a bid to set the agenda for the next round of climate change negotiations.