Rich 'can pay poor to cut carbon'
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6957328.stm
Rich nations should be absolved from the need to cut emissions if they
pay developing countries to do it on their behalf, a senior UN
official has said.
The controversial suggestion from Yvo de Boer, head of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has angered
environmental groups.
They say climate change will not be solved unless rich and poor
nations both cut emissions together.
But Mr de Boer said the challenge was so great that action was needed
now.
Carbon credits
The UN's binding global climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol,
currently requires industrialised nations to reduce the majority of
emissions themselves.
But Mr de Boer said this was illogical, adding that the scale of the
problem facing the world meant that countries should be allowed to
invest in emission cuts wherever in the world it was cheapest.
"We have been reducing emissions and making energy use more efficient
in industrialised countries for a long time," he told BBC News.
This proposal simply won't deliver the cuts we need in time
Mike Childs,
Friends of the Earth
"So it is quite expensive in these nations to reduce emissions any
more.
"But in developing nations, less has been done to reduce emissions and
less has been done to address energy efficiency," Mr de Boer observed.
"So it actually becomes economically quite attractive for a company,
for example in the UK, that has a target to achieve this goal by
reducing emissions in China."
He said rich nations should be able to buy their way out of 100% of
their responsibilities - though he doubted that any country would want
to do so.
Green groups said the proposal was against the spirit of the UN, which
agreed that wealthy countries - who were responsible for climate
change - should do most to cure it.
Mike Childs from Friends of the Earth said: "This proposal simply
won't deliver the cuts we need in time. The scientists are telling us
that we need to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) by 50-80% by 2050.
"Unless rich countries start to wean themselves off fossil fuels right
away this won't happen."
Doug Parr of Greenpeace was equally critical of Mr de Boer's
suggestion.
"The current trading system is not delivering emissions reductions as
it is," he said. "Expanding it like this to give rich countries a
completely free hand will simply not work."
--
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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