Row over emissions goal sours Bali talks
Foreign Desk Report

NUSA DUA (Indonesia)—The European Union took a veiled swipe at the United States at climate talks in Bali on Tuesday over Washington’s efforts to remove tough 2020 emissions guidelines for rich nations from draft text. U.N. climate talks in Bali have become dominated by disputes about whether a final text, or Bali roadmap, should omit any reference to scientific evidence that rich nations should axe greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Any watering down or outright removal of this non-binding range would anger developing nations, who are demanding rich nations do more to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. The row has overshadowed a separate finance ministers meeting in Bali and 10th anniversary celebrations for the Kyoto Protocol. “I understand that it is still in the text,” EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told reporters in Bali. “Of course it is crucial for the European Union, and not only for the European Union, in order to gather an effective fight against climate change we need this range of reductions for developed countries by 2020.” “The EU set a target of 30 percent (by 2020) provided that other developed countries come along, or even more than 30 percent if it is necessary,” he said. The Bali talks aim to bind all nations to greenhouse gas curbs from 2013 but poor nations want rich countries to do more before they agree. Negotiators are working hard on a formula to draw in the developing world, particularly India and China. The United States called on the meeting on Monday to drop any reference to 2020 guidelines for rich nations, saying it would prejudge the outcome of negotiations.
Australia, whose new government ratified the Kyoto Protocol last week, was vague on whether it supported a 25-40 pct range as a starting point for discussions. “Climate change is the global challenge of our generation,” Australia’s new Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday in Bali.
But Wong refused to confirm if Australia supported the inclusion of what she called an interim emissions reduction target of 25-40 percent by 2020 in draft text. “We are agreed with our friends in the EU and in other nations who say that we need an interim target. Australia agrees with that, but what we have done is we have put in place a process to determine what that target will be and how we propose to meet that.”
The government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, due in Bali later on Tuesday to make his debut on the world stage, has commissioned an analysis of various ranges of emissions targets. “We need to put a guard rail around the negotiations for the next two years,” said Hans Verolme of the WWF environmental group. He said the 25-40 percent range was needed for industrial nations to show they were committed to leading.
Finance ministers met in Bali on Tuesday to debate how to fund the fight against climate change, the first such meeting on the fringes of annual U.N. climate talks. The finance ministers, from about 20 nations, will debate issues ranging from the potential for carbon markets to help cut industrial emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to incentives for people to put solar panels on the roof at home.
“This is much too important to leave to environment ministers,” said Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist who wrote a report saying the costs of fighting climate change would be far smaller than those of ignoring the problem. “This is about low-carbon growth, not low growth,” he said. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono told the ministers they should play a much larger and more active role in responding to climate change at home and abroad.