The America/Asia-Pacific Partnership’s Answer to “Kyoto” (The CCBOW Web Master’s View)
A new pact has been announced (26 July 2005) which links the US, Australia, and four other leading Asian Countries (China, India, Japan and South Korea).
"The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate" has declared its aim to use new technology to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, from power stations, without setting mandatory targets.
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Emissions reductions achieved now could be vital for future generations.
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The US and Australia have been unwilling to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, and this is their response jointly with other nations (China, India, Japan and South Korea).
It has long been claimed by these nations that ratifying Kyoto would harm their economies, so their intention is to allow their economies to grow while cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions. They intend to do this by developing new technologies for low carbon energy generation, including clean coal burning in conjunction with carbon capture and storage. Storage is being developed to pump back the carbon dioxide underground, or under the seabed. This is a technology being actively developed now, in fact the UK is also researching this method, and such storage will possibly become viable within the next five years.
Emissions Reductions
What this mean in terms of real emissions reductions in not clear, especially since these nations have not defined any mandatory targets.
Effect on Kyoto
It is another way to approach the problem, and it could be said that Kyoto signatories could be doing more on the technology front, and the effect on “Kyoto” compliance within the signatory nations could be negative, but might also be neutral or even positive.
Kyoto requires “belt-tightening” whereas this new pact is a business-as-usual approach. The question is whether the technology can deliver, and whether take up by industry will be rapid enough without the “Kyoto” pressure, of what is effectively a “carbon tax”, on industry to focus sufficiently energetically on reduction.
Clearly, those nations already signed up for the initial period of Clean Discharge Management (CDM) up to 2012, will continue, and the effect will not be great. These include India and China, and over this initial period it is only the industrialised nations which are required to curtail their emissions, so the developing nations are not required to cut or contain their burgeoning greenhouse emissions.
That India and China were not to be required to cut emissions in the first stage of Kyoto has been one of the principal US objections to the treaty, from the start. All Kyoto signatories nevertheless have been of the view that once the developing nations had been given time to raise their economies to a more developed level, they too should accept reductions.
The fear is that the new pact may offer the developing countries an excuse not to come on board in Kyoto stage 2. The worry must be that they too may be tempted to follow the “Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate” signatories, saying that they too will be doing something to tackle the climate problem, and do not need mandatory targets during the next “Kyoto” period.
It is hoped that some analysts are correct to think that nations such as China and India do not need excuses, and that they will be governed in their actions by a hard-headed assessment of risks and costs, and that they will come into Stage 2 of “Kyoto”.
After all, their huge populations are likely to suffer more than most from climate change effects such as sea water level rises, and more severe extremes of weather.
Many have also said that some sort of action by nations, and particularly by the US, is better than nothing, and that at least it does show that there is at least a rapidly rising awareness of the seriousness of climate change, even from those nations where it’s existence has for so long been challenged. This would seem to be a very important development, if nothing else.
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