Climate negotiators agreed yesterday on an ambitious agenda for talks they hope will lead to a global warming pact, overcoming a heated dispute between Japan and developing countries on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The schedule came after five days of talks in Bangkok and requires negotiators to settle contentions issues, including how countries will cut their emissions and how rich nations will help the poor adapt to climate change.
“Not only do we have the certainty that critical issues will be addressed this year, we now have the bite-sized chunks which will allow us to negotiate in an effective manner,” UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said.
Delegates also welcomed the agreement, but warned significant differences remain over demands from the US and Japan for developing countries to accept binding targets as part of a pact to stabilize greenhouse gases in the next 10 to 15 years and cut them in half by 2050.
“We can live with the work program, but the negotiations ahead will be tough, very tough,” said Prodipto Ghosh, a member of the Indian delegation.
“There are wide divergences between different groups over the nature of the conclusions to be reached,” he said.
Talks had bogged down because of developing nations’ opposition to discussion of a Japanese proposal to set industry-specific emissions reduction targets.
Developing nations want rich countries to agree to set national targets first.
Representatives from 163 countries met in Bangkok for the first negotiations on a pact meant to take effect after 2012.
The agenda postponed in depth discussions of the Japanese proposal until August to satisfy critics in developing nations.
Instead, other issues — such as rich countries’ efforts to help poor nations adapt to rising temperatures — will be discussed first.
Delegates also deleted from an earlier draft a call for discussion of what the US emissions reduction targets might be in the new agreement, delegates said, leaving talk of that for next year — when a new US president will be in office.
The draft schedule also called for talks on the transfer of clean technologies from rich countries to developing ones at the June meeting in Bonn.
A meeting in Ghana in August would address the Japanese proposal, as well as deforestation.
The Japanese plan triggered strident opposition from China, India and other developing countries. They argued it was an attempt to shift the burden from rich to poor nations.
Tokyo hopes for an agreement on energy efficiency targets for specific industries across national boundaries.
Proponents say it would preserve competition, while rewarding countries like Japan that already have high levels of energy efficiency.
Poorer countries, however, fear it would favor nations with a technological edge by allowing them to make fewer cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Ghosh dismissed the Japanese proposal as a “huge protectionist scam,” while the G-77 grouping of developing countries refused to include any reference to it in the work plan.
Japan is campaigning to put its approach at the center of the future agreement, which is to take effect when the Kyoto pact ends in 2012.
Kyoji Komachi, who headed the Japanese delegation, said Japan was not using the proposal to force developing countries into the same emissions targets as wealthy industrialized nations.
But he was happy with the final document.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not