ACCRA, Ghana – Negotiators meet here this week to resume work on a new climate change treaty and discuss ways to prod developing countries to join the fight against global warming.
But the latest round of talks comes at an awkward moment, with the world's poor more worried about the immediate cost of food and fuel than the uncertain long-term effects of climate change.
The weeklong U.N. climate conference opens Thursday, with more than 1,000 delegates in attendance, to work on an agreement to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
Scientists say the gases trap the earth's heat and already have begun to cause more severe tropical storms, harsher droughts in arid areas and melting ice packs in the Arctic.
They have a December 2009 deadline to complete one of the most complex international accords ever negotiated, designed to halve by mid-century the amount of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from transportation, industry and power generation.
The agreement would succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. At least two years are needed for ratification to ensure a seamless transition.
Under Kyoto, the burden of reducing emissions fell on 37 industrial countries that agreed to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The United States, which refused to participate, called that accord unfair, questioning why powerful economies such as India and China were exempt from obligations. Those countries argue they were not responsible for global warming, and their first priority is to lift their people from poverty.
That gap must be bridged, said Harald Dovland, the Norwegian chairman of a key committee on updating Kyoto.
“We know what we need on a global level in terms of reductions,” Dovland told The Associated Press. “We cannot continue forever saying this is an issue for the industrial countries, and no one else should do anything.”
No hard decisions are expected in Accra. Delegates hope to begin drafting treaty language to be adopted at the next meeting in December in Poznan, Poland, when specific targets will be discussed for reducing carbon emissions.
Among the ideas meant to entice developing countries into the climate change process are payoffs for halting deforestation – calculated to contribute 20 percent of carbon emissions – and rewards for reducing gases from specific industries or economic sectors.
Such proposals are fraught with pitfalls, and are treated with suspicion by one side or the other.
Global economics add other complications. Dovland said his group will hold its first discussion in Accra on the economic and social “spillover effects” of steps to control climate change.
Countries that rely on tourism, for example, are concerned that travel will become more expensive if carbon taxes are imposed on airlines.
In what seems ironic today, oil-exporting countries have historically been most concerned about the economic impact of measures to curb the use of carbon-laden fossil fuels, fearing they would devastate their livelihoods.
Now, the focus is shifting toward the spillover effects of biofuels and other factors pushing up food prices.
The shape of the current climate talks was adopted at a major conference last December in Bali, Indonesia.
Accra is the third conference since then, and at least another five are scheduled before an agreement is due to be wrapped up in Copenhagen, Denmark, next year. The intensity of negotiations reflect deep political divisions over many of the thousands of details that require nailing down.
Progress has been frustratingly slow. Dovland says the Accra talks will falter “unless we come with a spirit of cooperation, trying to resolve things instead of making things more and more complicated.”
“The political pressure isn't strong enough,” said Kathrin Gutmann, policy coordinator of the WWF Global Climate Initiative. “A lot of governments don't have positions yet and are going through internal processes where ideas are still festering.”
An unlikely group of countries has emerged as drivers of the process. South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland and Norway have offered detailed proposals on issues from financing to help poor countries adapt to climate change, to regulating carbon emissions of international shipping and air transport.
The trick is to persuade the big players – the United States, India and China – to ease away from their entrenched self interest.
Years of negotiations have shown the limits of what countries are willing to sacrifice, said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change and the man overseeing the negotiations.
Rich countries will not accept heavy burdens on their economies, and developing countries will not agree to constraints on their growth. “If you don't meet those basic criteria you are not going to achieve success,” he said.
