Welcome message from US on climate

Chris Stanton

• Last Updated: November 24. 2009 8:27PM UAE / November 24. 2009 4:27PM GMT

The road to climate talks in Copenhagen next month has a great many potholes, but a large one was patched late on Monday when the US government announced plans to set a firm target on cutting carbon pollution.

Congress has not approved final legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases but aides to Barack Obama, the US president, said America’s pledge to cut emissions would be based on targets that have been floated in the Senate and House of Representatives.

The US, as the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is vital to the success of any agreement, said Steve Howard, the chief executive of the Climate Group, a lobbying organisation that has Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and major corporations as partners in its push for new emissions limits.

“We’ll get a framework agreement and then there will be 12 months, maybe less, of hard work to turn that into a fully legally ratifiable treaty,” Mr Howard said on the sidelines of a conference in Abu Dhabi. “If you get the US fully on board in any international deal, I’d be very happy.”

The Copenhagen talks have been billed as the final round of negotiations to write a binding treaty but officials say, at best, they will yield a high-level political agreement to be translated into a treaty next year.

Climate advocates say the world is racing to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to have a chance at limiting the warming of the planet to 2°C.

That level will probably have some effects on weather patterns and the melting of ice at the Earth’s poles, scientists say, but without success on a new treaty temperatures could rise between 6°C and 7°C, which would profoundly alter the climate.

Scientists warned in a report yesterday that global warming was already having an effect.

In the past 25 years, the planet has warmed an average of 0.19°C a decade, and the melting of sea ice in the Arctic in the past three summers has exceeded forecasts by 40 per cent, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany says.

Economically painful cuts will need to come from all of the major countries including the US, experts say, and negotiators have struggled this year with developing countries that are reluctant to reduce fossil fuel consumption without much larger pledges from industrialised states.

Major oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, would benefit from playing a bigger role in climate change talks, Mr Howard said.

Saudi Arabia has proposed that oil producers receive financial assistance to shift their economies away from oil, a position backed by Qatar and OPEC officials.

But Mr Howard predicted the idea would not be accepted at negotiations next month in Copenhagen.

“This has become a top global political agenda,” he said in reference to limits on greenhouse gas emissions. “Do you want to be fighting the world on climate change or moving on to be part of the solution?”

Instead of requesting compensation, oil producers could together set a levy on oil and use part of the proceeds to fund their move away from economic dependence on oil exports, Mr Howard said.

The levy would stabilise the price of oil and guarantee a price floor, boosting the investment case for alternative energy sources, he said.

“That would be bold leadership and appropriate, and that would totally change the nature of the debate and the position of the oil nations on the issue,” Mr Howard said. “It would be the right thing for them to do, and then you could secure the funding.”

* with agencies

cstanton@thenational.ae