The next climate change challenge

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Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with The World’s Environment Editor Peter Thomson about what was accomplished at the latest UN environment conference, in Cancun last week. Download MP3

• Environment coverage on The World

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  The battlefront in the international effort to slow global climate change is moving now to Durban, South Africa.  That’s where environment ministers are going to be meeting one year from now.  They’ll try to build on a deal that was reached over this past weekend at the latest United Nations climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico. The World’s environment editor, Peter Thomson, is here to tell us where we go from Cancun.  Peter, first tell us how does the landscape look now on addressing climate change, environmentally and politically?

Peter Thomson: Well, environmentally, frankly, doesn’t look a whole lot different than it did going in.  I mean nothing that came out of this meeting in Cancun changes the basic lay of the land.  Climate change is real.  It’s happening fast.  And the world is no closer to committing to reduce the problem. Politically, I think we’re a little close than we were.  I mean this is the most difficult political challenge I think the world has ever faced.  But I think that there were some bridges mended at this meeting, and somewhat significant, if modest, advances made on commitments between countries to actually do things.

Mullins: Okay, and the most pronounced among those even modest accomplishments?

Thomson: Well, basically there were four.  One was an agreement to help preserve tropical forests.  Tropical forests are an extremely important synch of carbon; they absorb a huge amount of carbon from the atmosphere.  They’ve been being chopped down and burned, and that releases a lot of carbon into the atmosphere.  So for the first time, these agreements include provisions to pay essentially, tropical forest countries to preserve their forests.  That’s very significant. There were also agreements to build on this fund that was established last year to provide $100 billion from developed countries to developing countries to deal with climate change. And an agreement on technology transfer, helping developing countries obtain and use proprietary technologies in helping fight climate change. And perhaps one of the most significant ones is a deal on monitoring the emissions of all countries, but in particular developing countries like China and India; basically saying this is what we’re doing…you can come in and look at our books and monitor progress on those.

Mullins: Uh-huh, and China and India are pivotal to the continuation or non-continuation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  This is the only global treaty that deals with actually cutting greenhouse gas pollution; it expires in just over a year.

Thomson: Yeah, and that was one of the big questions coming into this conference, probably the biggest overriding question.  The Kyoto Protocol is the agreement signed 13 years ago that binds most of the world’s developed countries to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, but doesn’t require anything of particular of developing countries, including China and India. But it also doesn’t include the United States because the United States never ratified that treaty.  So, basically the Kyoto Protocol only covers about 40% of global emissions.  And there’s been a tremendous amount of talk about what comes next.  How do we come up with a process that is going to include all of the big emitters, so that it really makes a difference?

Mullins: So was there any motion on that?

Thomson: No.  That’s basically how they salvaged this conference was by agreeing not to do anything on that for the time being, and to kick it ahead until next year, which is really the very last moment.  Because the next meeting takes place in December 2011.  The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Mullins: So where does this leave the Obama administration in the setup now to the next climate change summit in Durban, South Africa?

Thomson: Well, I think it leaves them in a bit stronger position than they were coming into Cancun.  There was a lot of criticism of the U.S. coming out of Copenhagen that they were in large part responsible for the very weak agreement there.  I think that they have managed to take this difficult position in which they’re squeezed between what’s needed internationally, and what’s needed in terms of what the science tells us the problem calls for, and what’s possible domestically, in Washington, to actually accomplish. And they’re trying to thread this needle.  And I think that some of these more modest increments that they’ve made keeps the U.N. process going, keeps them engaged, keeps them involved as players, and sets the stage in Durban for perhaps a more cooperative, collegial approach than was expected coming into Cancun.

Mullins: All right, thank you very much, The World’s environment editor, Peter Thomson, thank you.

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