NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 6, 2006
Climate Conference Seeks Signs From U.S.
Two-Week Session In Kenya On Steps To Ward Off Effects Of Change
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Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana opens talks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, Nov. 6, 2006. Delegates from around the world are attending to discuss next steps to ward off the worst impacts of climate change. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
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Many at the two-week session will look for signs the United States might ease its stand against mandatory reductions in emissions that scientists blame for global warming. Few expect to see such a change, however, while the Bush administration is in power.
"We are all gathered this morning on behalf of mankind, because we acknowledge that climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious threats humanity will ever face," Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori told delegates in an opening speech.
Over the next two weeks, the delegates will get a closed-door preview of the latest scientific findings on a warming world, to be published next year in a comprehensive U.N. assessment by the world's leading climate scientists.
Among more recent results:
Scientists blame the past century's one-degree-Fahrenheit rise in average global temperatures at least in part on the accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel-burning sources.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an annex to the 1992 U.N. climate-change treaty, requires 35 industrialized countries to reduce those emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
A U.N. report last week indicated many countries are struggling to meet their targets.
Industrialized nations' emissions declined in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the shutdown of polluting factories and power plants in Eastern Europe. But now those economies are rebounding, contributing to a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by all industrialized nations between 2000 and 2004, that report said.
Here in Nairobi, the Kyoto countries will continue talks on what kind of emissions targets and timetables should follow 2012. But many are waiting to see whether the biggest emitter, the United States — accounting for 21 percent of the world's greenhouse gases — will submit to a mandatory regime of cutbacks.
But words by the U.S. negotiator seemed to rule that out.
Harlan Watson was asked at a news conference whether reported pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair might have led to a change of attitude in the Bush administration toward Kyoto-style controls.
"I certainly got no indication that there's any change in our position," Watson replied, "nor is there likely to be during this presidency."
President Bush once cited scientific uncertainty about climate change in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol. But today "the science is no longer contested," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, told reporters here Sunday. In fact, he said, the scenarios of five or 10 years ago "have had to be revised not downward, but upward."
The Bush administration still objects to Kyoto-style mandates because, it says, they would hamstring U.S. economic growth and because poorer countries are exempted from the controls.
In counterpoint to this, a British government study released last week predicts the damage from unabated climate change will eventually cost between 5 percent and 20 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) each year.
That report showed that tackling climate change "is a fundamental economic necessity as well," Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana told the conference, which elected him president of the treaty body for the coming year.
"Climate change threatens development goals for billions of the world's poorest people," he said.
In an effort to draw Washington into an international emissions-control regime, a broad "dialogue" was instituted last May involving all treaty countries, including the United States, in talks about ways to confront global warming. Those discussions will continue here.
Much of the Nairobi conference will be devoted to technical matters, such as organizing the Adaptation Fund, intended to help poorer countries grapple with climate change — by financing the building of walls against rising seas, for example, or switching to drought-resistant crops.
Africa — already on the edge environmentally — is the continent expected to suffer most from shifting climate zones and droughts, like the one now in its fourth year in East Africa.
"Sub-Saharan Africa is heavily dependent on agriculture," Awori said. "Climate change will greatly reduce recent gains made in poverty eradication."
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- Why are there less hurricanes this year? Did global warming take a break?
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- An answer to seafang. Its political if you talk about water vapor which is emitted by all land creatures then you have no issue. If you tie it to the stuff coming out the back of my car you can take political advantage of it. You can blame greedy car companies and the oil industry and evil republicans. The truth is we are not as smart as we think and we just don't know. I like the link between the decrease in the number of Pirates and the increase in global warming. Stop global warming become a pirate.
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- sharnceder
I live on the Gulf Coast. It was recently proven that the record setting hurricanes that hit here and caused massive destruction were fueled and made worse by global warming. This is just a small taste of what's to be expected if we don't act. There is tons more information on the web. If you really want to know the truth just steer clear of the right wing pundits and look for the science. - Reply to this comment
- Could someone who claims to understand the science explain why climate change is bad for people rather than good. I mean other than the "change is bad" mentality of people. A warmer earth - is that bad? Probably a warmer earth is a wetter earth, as there is more evaporation over the oceans. Is that bad? Why? Sounds warm and wet, like Florida, unlike Alberta Canada which is dry and cold. Which supports more human life?
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- So why is it that none of these "climate scientists" talk about water vapor; the most abundant greenhouse gas and major effluent of our future hydrogen economy?
just asking - Reply to this comment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
