Times of India , Thursday, April 03, 2008

Correspondent : Staff Reporter

BANGKOK: With the United States on the verge of a recession, American negotiators at a UN climate conference warned that calls for steep emission cuts could further rattle economies, especially in the developing world. But delegates from poor nations and environmentalists said on Thursday that such fears were just a ploy to avoid tough action. They suggested that any climate pact would spur economic growth in areas such as clean technology and help ward off the worst impacts of global warming, which is already being linked in part to skyrocketing food prices. The EU has proposed that industrialised countries slash emissions 25-40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a global climate pact. The U S, which is one of the world's top polluters, has repeatedly rejected mandatory national reduction targets of the kind agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol a decade ago. Harlan Watson, the head of the US delegation in Bangkok, said such hard targets failed to take into account the potential economic impact. "If you push the globe into recession, it certainly isn't going to help the developing world either," Watson said. "Exports go down, and many of the developing countries of course are heavily dependent on exports. So there's a lot of issues which need to be fleshed out ... so people understand the real world." Earlier this month, Japan raised concerns about the economic costs in a report that suggested households and businesses could pay more than US$500 billion to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 11 per cent over the next decade. The forecast, by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, comes as Japan is struggling to meet obligations under the Kyoto global warming pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions 6 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. In Bangkok, delegates from 163 countries on Monday launched a 21-month process aimed at concluding a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, to rein in carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases blamed for the rise in world temperatures. The economy hasn't yet become a major topic in the Bangkok discussions, but it could be a concern in affected countries down the road, said Andrej Kranjc, secretary of Slovenia's Environment Ministry, who was speaking for the European Union in Bangkok. "It could divert policy makers' attention from climate change to these problems, of course, and it would be a problem," he said. Economic fears are nothing new when it comes to climate talks. Business groups in the United States used the argument to undermine support for the Kyoto agreement, leaving America as the only industrialised country not to sign the pact. But the actual effect of emission cuts remains the subject of heated debate. While some business groups and climate skeptics continue to warn of economic chaos, the Stern Review in found in 2006 that inaction would far outweigh action on climate change. The report entitled "The Economics of Climate Change" acknowledged actions to rein in greenhouses gases would cut global gross domestic product by 1 per cent each year. But the report concluded that unabated climate change would eventually cost the world the equivalent of 5-20 per cent of global GDP annually.

SOURCE : Times of India, Thursday, 03 April 2008