International students join a campaign organised by environmental group Greenpeace outside the IPCC meeting in Bangkok.
Credit: AFP
BANGKOK: The world's leading climate change experts gathered in Bangkok yesterday to thrash out a masterplan on limiting the worst impacts of global warming.
At least 400 scientists and experts from about 120 countries are attending the week-long third session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N.'s leading authority on global warming.
Two reports issued earlier this year by the panel warned that the Earth was already warming and predicted severe consequences including drought, flooding, violent storms and increased hunger and disease.
"Time is now"
The third report, to be released here Friday, aims to lay out ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent a climate catastrophe without seriously hurting the global economy.
"The time to act is now," Chartree Chueyprasit, one of Thailand's top environment officials, told the opening of the meeting. "Global warming is increasingly becoming a hot agenda that requires harmonised cooperation from all nations."
An early draft of the panel's 24-page summary, says that world leaders have little time to waste, but that the tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at a modest cost, already exist.
Renewable energy, nuclear power, bio-fuels and reforestation are all in the mix, but a spokesman for the U.N. Environment Programme said the draft report was likely to be "completely rewritten" by the end of the week.
Carbon pricing
Sticking points at the Bangkok meeting could include taxes and caps on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and any references to the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. abandoned after President George W. Bush took office.
Any mention of nuclear energy in the final report would also incur the wrath of many environmental groups.
One of the key issues set to be hotly debated is a so-called carbon price – finding a way to make consumers and businesses pay for the pollution they create.
The findings of the report, which stops short of making recommendations, will be used by governments and international organisations to map out their own plans for preventing worst-case climate scenarios. The report will also play a key role in Kyoto negotiations, which will take place in December on the Indonesian island of Bali.
But achieving that harmony between so many diverse nations and agreeing on exactly what action to take is expected to be the subject of fierce debate, with some delegates predicting that the meeting will be hijacked by politics.
Difficult harmony
Many expect the U.S. and China, the world's biggest carbon polluters, to seek to water down the most stringent measures.
"It's very difficult at these negotiations to try to find that level of compromise and to try to find sustainable solutions that are equitable," said Peter Lukey, of South Africa's department of environmental affairs. "This is a highly politicised event ... it's highly frustrating."
The European Union has pledged to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, targets the U.S. and China refuse to adopt for fear of hurting their economies.
"I hope this gathering can produce balanced views, not just the views of the developed countries," said Chinese delegate Sun Guoshun.
The chief U.S. delegate, Harlan Watson, issued a statement saying the United States wanted to balance lower pollution levels with economic considerations.
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, played down tensions between the major players and said they were hopeful of hammering out their differences and reaching a conclusion by Friday. "I think the nature of the subject is such that there will be a lot of intensive debate but I'm sure we will be able to resolve any outstanding issues without any major disruption in the proceedings," he told reporters.
