Climate Talks Aim for Gas Cuts by Developed Nations

Delegates at this week’s United Nations conference on climate change will try to agree for the first time on the range of greenhouse-gas emission cuts that developed nations must make to slow the pace of global warming.

“For the first time, we are going to talk about specific numbers,” Grenada’s Leon Charles, a diplomat who heads the UN working group of developed countries, told reporters today. “If we can come to a common agreement on numbers that have environmental integrity, that will send a very strong message that developed countries are taking climate change seriously,”
More than 1,000 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries are in Vienna for the talks. Formal negotiations will begin in December in Bali on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Kyoto accord requires 5 percent cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels. The treaty doesn’t assign targets to developing nations such as China and India.

UN scientists said in February that emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are “very likely” to be the main cause of global warming, which may cause an increase in floods, droughts and the extinction of animals. That prompted European Union lawmakers in June to urge a 50 percent emissions cut by 2050, to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the global average in the 18th century.

At the center of the talks in Vienna is a new report in which the UN estimates the financing necessary to curb climate change. Spending will have to rise to around $200 billion a year by 2030 from $25 billion annually today if climate change is to be curbed. The report will be presented tomorrow.

Bloomberg