UN: Financial Crisis May Hinder Climate Change Treaty
Posted on: Monday, 6 October 2008, 14:25 CDT
Efforts to fight climate change must not be allowed to falter amid the global financial crisis, said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change.
De Boer said he was concerned about the impact the current credit crisis may have on international initiatives to combat climate change as U.S. and European governments sink cash into sustaining commercial banks.
"You can only spend a dollar or a euro once," he said.
"I certainly think it's a worrying development. It's more a matter of the past couple of days than the past couple of weeks," de Boer said during a Reuters interview, in reference to a plea by European automakers over the weekend for more money to help them implement emissions curbs.
"There's growing pressure ... from the point of view of competitiveness," de Boer said.
Although U.N. negotiations are still proceeding, there are risks of failing to meet the 2009 deadline for a new U.N. climate treaty intended to avert more floods, droughts, extinctions of species and rising sea levels, De Boer said.
"For me there is no Plan B," he said.
"I have the sense that it's a huge and daunting task but we're still on track, there's still commitment to reach an agreement in Copenhagen."
"One alternative would be that we don't manage to meet a deadline in Copenhagen and that we slide into a WTO-like process that goes on without a clearly agreed deadline, or perhaps even worse that you get a highly fragmented approach to climate change.”
Wealthy nations have so far failed to articulate promises to provide technology and financing assistance to developing countries, said China's climate change ambassador Yu Qingtai during an interview with Reuters on Monday.
Yu was not optimistic about the chances for a new global climate treaty.
The divide between wealthy and poor nations coincides with July’s collapse of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha round of free trade negotiations amid disputes between emerging economies and the United States.
China wants the West to do more to finance global climate change initiatives. However, both Europe and the U.S. may be constrained by recent bailouts of the financial sector.
"There's a risk that less public money will be available in the North for cooperation with the South on technology and capacity building," de Boer said.
"Taken together there's a risk that short-term concerns will prevail."
"I hope that this doesn't result in people in the South waiting for (climate change) adoption money having to wait for mortgages and credit card debts to be paid off in the North."
In a critical vote on Tuesday of this week, key European Parliament lawmakers will decide whether to support ambitious, unilateral goals for the EU to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Although they are widely expected to approve the new emission targets, they are under intense industry lobby pressure to reduce the costs of achieving those goals.
In a sign that any final agreement may be delayed, Poland said Monday it was assembling a minority of EU member states sufficient to block the cost impacts on coal-fired electricity generation resulting from EU energy and climate plans.
"I certainly hope the EU manages to finalize its climate and energy package by the end of the year," said de Boer.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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