• English Site
• >World
• >Climate Change
• >

  Bali Climate Change Conference: 'We Have Very Little Time to Act'

Bali Climate Change Conference 'We Have Very Little Time to Act'

By Patrick McGroarty in Berlin

Part 2: 'Mutually Assured Destruction'

Still, in addition to helping poor countries deal with climate change, the UNFCCC also wants to help them take their share of the burden. While industry in most developing countries still doesn't emit much carbon dioxide relative to the world's biggest polluters, deforestation has developed into a major problem. Not only do healthy forests serve as "carbon sinks," absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen in its place, but deforestation in tropical countries now accounts for 20 percent of the carbon released into earth's atmosphere each year. A study released in August concluded that current programs to cut emissions, including the Kyoto Protocol, provide little incentive for leaders of tropical nations to keep their forests intact.

'Something in its Place'

"On a very local level, you are only going to get the guy holding an axe to put it down if you can put in place an economic alternative that is equal to cutting down the tree or building something in its place," said de Boer.

One such incentive would be to funnel funding to nations with tropical forests through an international carbon trading market. In such a system, richer, higher-polluting nations would be able to fund the preservation of carbon-rich forests to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union is piloting a similar emissions trading scheme, and according to UNFCCC, trading on that market was worth $30 billion in 2006.

Additionally, though, European commentators stressed that the most important help will be direct financial support from rich nations to projects far beyond their own borders. Continental leaders say they are willing to make a major financial commitment to global emissions reduction, though no one has yet come up with an actual number. Even if the money does materialize, they cannot go it alone.

"If Europe is very ambitious on climate change but its competitors are not, then a climate change regime will just cause factories and jobs to leave the EU without any global benefit of emissions reduction," de Boer points out. "A key part of the challenge is to create a regime that allows a European producer to be very ambitious in their energy saving methods in the knowledge that someone is not making the same product without taking emissions into account."

'Mutually Assured Destruction'

So far, Europe’s efforts to forestall climate change have not hurt its economy. Helfferich noted that European Union member states this spring committed to unilaterally reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, with further reductions planned should an international deal be made.

The evidence in favor of that deal is mounting rapidly. Climate change naysayers have become few and far between while reports as to the increasingly vulnerable state of our climate are mounting. That, say European negotiators heading to Bali this week, may be their strongest weapon. And they are hoping it will be enough.

"We have a situation like in the Cold War, with mutually assured destruction," said Ott. "The difference is that in the Cold War the challenge was to refrain from doing something. Now the challenge is bigger because we have to actually do something."

For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol.

Post to other social networks:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•