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US climate plan 'encouraging'
01/06/2007 09:34 - (SA)
Amsterdam, Netherlands - The UN official steering international negotiations on global warming said on Thursday that US President George W Bush's proposal to summon major greenhouse gas emitters for discussions will accelerate an arrangement for controlling climate change.
"It's really good that the US is showing leadership in energising the debate" on a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
By proposing a meeting of major emitting countries this autumn with the goal of reaching an agreement within 18 months, Bush is setting a timetable even faster than the most optimistic plans of UN negotiators.
"This is actually more ambitious than my wildest dreams," De Boer told The Associated Press.
Following Bush's speech, De Boer said White House officials had assured him that Bush's plan was intended to feed into existing UN-led efforts to plot out a successor to the 1997 Kyoto agreement, and was not meant to launch a separate negotiating track.
The Kyoto accord set binding targets on 35 industrial countries to reduce carbon emissions by an average five percent from 1990 levels by 2012. What happens after that was left open for subsequent negotiations. The Bush administration rejected the Kyoto approach of binding national targets with sanctions for failure.
On Thursday, Bush suggested a meeting with 15 of the heaviest emitting countries this autumn, several months before the next major international climate meeting scheduled in December in Bali, Indonesia.
It would bring in key players that have stayed outside the collaborative effort to control carbon dioxide emissions, including India, China and the United States itself.
The UN had hoped the Bali convention would launch formal negotiations on a new climate agreement, but until now US opposition had cast doubt that would happen.
De Boer said the Bush proposal for a prior meeting would boost the prospects for the Bali talks.
"I find this to be very encouraging," de Boer said from his home in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
He also welcomed Bush's support for the broader objectives of adapting to climate change, limiting deforestation and transferring technology to poor countries that would help them limit emissions.
- AP
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