Dimas snipes at Bush on climate

The European Commission will this month ask the world to invest more in helping poor countries fight global warming, according to European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

Government representatives and the Commission are meeting in Nairobi on 6-17 November for an annual UN climate change conference. Environment ministers and Dimas are scheduled to join experts and diplomats on 15 November.

In an interview with European Voice, Dimas said the choice of venue should serve to make delegates focus on ways to help poorer countries keep carbon dioxide emissions down.

The Kyoto protocol on climate change imposes emission reduction targets on the wealthy countries that have ratified, but not on the developing world. This has led to fears that industrial growth in China or parts of Africa will override any CO2 reductions in the West.

One solution to this is allowing Kyoto countries to pay for clean technologies in the developing world and put the subsequent emission reduction credits towards their own targets at home. These investments make up Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The Kenyan capital is a particularly appropriate place to talk about this, says Dimas, because sub-Saharan Africa has so far been neglected by the CDM.

"Regrettably of all the CDM programmes only 2% are in Africa," he explained, "and they are mainly in South Africa. There are none anywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa."

Long-term emission reduction policies will also be discussed, although no final decisions are expected. This will be the first climate change meeting since governments agreed last year to have a new round of emission reduction targets when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The US has repeatedly refused to ratify Kyoto. EU member states have also come under fire for making slow progress towards their own targets.

Despite American opposition and European sluggishness, Dimas has no doubt the principles of Kyoto are here to stay.

"I assume the basic structure of the Kyoto Protocol will look the same [after 2012]. If the name changes it means nothing," said the commissioner.

He predicted that US resistance to a ‘cap-and-trade’ system such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) would not last: "I do not understand why [US President George] Bush is not doing what his successor will do, almost certainly."

Dimas will also use the meeting to defend the ETS, following news earlier this year that member states had over-allocated CO2 emission permits in the first year of trading.

"ETS is functioning very well," according to the commissioner. "The first period was a learning period."

He agreed that in the early days of trading "business was over-optimistic and member states were complacent". He confirmed his intention to be tough on draft national allocation plans for the second round (2007-12), saying he would send back the majority for revision in the member states.

Dimas welcomed the publication of a climate change report in the UK last week (30 October), saying he hoped it would encourage co-operation between governments. The report said "deep emissions cuts" were needed to prevent climate change from ending in economic catastrophe.

The report, by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, warns of international economic disaster unless drastic action is taken to halt global warming.

The European Commission will this month ask the world to invest more in helping poor countries fight global warming, according to European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.