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## Nachricht vom 04.11.99, erstellt von James.Williams@ams.greenpeace.org
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KYOTO PROTOCOL TALKS REVIVED BUT "STONES LEFT UNTURNED"


BONN, Nov 4, 1999 - Despite new political momentum towards ratification of  
the Kyoto Protocol on climate change so that it becomes international law  
by 2002 at the tenth anniversary meeting of the Rio Earth Summit,  
delegates left many stones unturned at international negotiations held  
here this week, Greenpeace said today.



"We welcome the 60-plus new nationalcommitments to ratify the Kyoto  
protocol in time for it to enter into force by 2002, made here in Bonn.   
However there has been far too little progress on how the protocol will  
actually be implemented" said Greenpeace
Climate Policy Director Bill Hare.



The Bonn Conference has decided that the key issues remaining will be
finalized at a major summit to be held in the Hague, Netherlands in
November 2000 and that the international negotiations will be intensified
over the next 12 months.  "We still have a long way to go before we get a
Kyoto protocol that actually delivers greenhouse gas reductions and
doesn't provide loopholes for countries such as the United States to
simply buy their way out of taking domestic action" said Bill Hare.


"The next year of very intense negotiations are vital to the protocol's
success.  More vital however, over the next 12 months, will be the efforts
of governments to adopt measures at home to reduce emissions," Hare said.
"This is essential as without domestic action all the international
efforts will come to nothing in terms of protecting the world's climate
system."



The Protocol is supposed to achieve a reduction of over 5 0n emissions of
greenhouse gases by 2010, however the loopholes which some countries are
pushing would enable the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to escape
any reductions at all.  In the worst case it would just be business as
usual.



Two of the major outstanding issues are those of the use of forests to
avoid action and the question of how much action a country must take at
home to reduce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, from motor
vehicles and power stations. By planting forests or even just through
accounting tricks with existing forests some countries could claim enough
carbon credits stored in trees to avoid action at all. Whilst planting
trees and protecting forests is extremely important this should not be
used to evade the obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at source.
 Unrestricted use of carbon trading could allow countries such as the USA
to avoid significant action at home by simply buying  carbon "credits"
from Russia, whose emissions have fallen dramatically from the baseline
year of 1990 due to its economic collapse.


The European Union and its member states, Japan and New Zealand
committed to ratify the protocol so that it enters into force by the tenth
anniversary meeting of the Rio Earth Summit, in 2002. at the meeting .
This group makes up 410f industrialized country emissions, or 80 per
cent of the 55% required (based on 1990 emissions) to make the protocol
enter into force or become international law. (Ministerial statements to
the Bonn meeting on Tuesday afternoon and evening. included:  UK, Japan,
Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Greece, Italy, France,  Finland, Spain, Ireland,
New Zealand.)   So far only 14 countries, all of them developing and
mostly from the small island states,  have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.


A number of countries at the Bonn meeting also declared their opposition
to the inclusion of nuclear power in the mechanisms to implement the Kyoto
protocol. These included; Germany, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Italy,
Greece, Indonesia, Singapore, Tuvalu, Nauru and Ireland. The nuclear
industry has more than 100 representatives at the Bonn meeting and for
many years has been attempting to promote itself as a solution to climate
change. Greenpeace is opposed to nuclear technology and joins these
countries is demanding that it be excluded from the mechanisms to
implement the Kyoto protocol.



Greenpeace also questioned the environmental merits of the Argentinian
proposal to take on a voluntary emissions target to allow it to trade in
carbon emissions.  "Instead of joining the group of countries with formal
emission targets, Argentina wants to have the cake and eat it - not take
on any formal target, but join the club of emission traders" said Hare.


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