While the world's attention was on the WTO meeting in Qatar, another important meeting took place in Morocco. The seventh Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention met in Marrakech for two weeks ending Nov. 9 to discuss the final binding regulations of the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol seeks to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, an issue that should be of much interest to Taiwan, which is surrounded by rising seas and is struck by typhoons every year.
This was the largest, most important international meeting since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with 4,500 people from 171 countries participating, including 44 Cabinet ministers. The meeting decided the scope of emission reductions for six greenhouse gases, the implementation timetable, methods of calculating emissions and mechanisms to provide flexibility in compliance.
The Kyoto Protocol was born from the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was signed in 1997 in Kyoto and required that 38 industrialized nations reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide) by an average of 5.2 percent, taking them below 1990 levels. Since 1992, seven conferences have tightened the strictures of the treaty. The standards for reducing emissions have transformed from statements of principle to bylaws governing implementation with the binding force of law.
These climate talks are the result of an increasing body of scientific evidence on global warming. In 1988, the UN Environment Program and World Meteorological Organization established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Three working groups were set up to assess the scientific aspects of the climate system, climate change and its impact, and to assess policy options for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. The IPCC has issued scientific assessment reports in 1990, 1995 and this year. This year's report showed that, based on current emissions levels and rate of warming, in the next 100 years the average global temperature will rise by up to 5.8C. Sea levels will rise by nearly one meter as the polar ice caps melt. This prediction was more dire than that of a 1995 report predicting temperatures will rise between 1.5C and 3C. Based on day-to-day experience, one might think fluctuations in temperature each day of a few degrees are normal and of no significance. But changes in the average global temperature are very slow. For example, in the past 100 years, temperatures rose by only about 0.6C.
Global warming results in part from the rise in human economic activity, excessive use of fossil fuels, and deforestation. The increase in a country's use of energy resources is usually directly proportional to its economic growth. This is the heart of the problem. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases highlights dilemmas about the use of resources, industrial structures, economic development, and the balance of interests. Emissions of greenhouse gases is an international problem. Some people call the emissions from industrialized countries "wealth pollution." Emissions from developing countries are considered "poverty pollution." The root of the difficulty with climate negotiations stems from the need to share the costs of pollution and realize emissions reductions.
A rise in the sea level might seem a remote problem, but climate irregularities and weather extremes caused by global warming are right before our eyes. Related phenomena that have appeared one after another in Taiwan include more clement winters, changes in the seasons of certain fish, reduced harvests of green plums, changes in rainfall patterns, abnormal typhoon movements, drought, the unstable supply of agricultural products, and so on.
Global warming has already caused serious damage to Taiwan. The bizarre thing is that in the struggle for precedence between the many policy issues under public debate, global warming has not received the attention it deserves. Instead, disastrous damage tends to be handled after the crisis has occurred. Frequent elections have not only failed to initiate a policy debate, they have actually marginalized environmental issues even more.
International relations have long been focused on the management of political, military and economic affairs. In fact, environmental issues, which transcend political boundaries, are playing a more and more salient role on the international stage. As we confront the trend toward globalization and evaluate its progress, global warming will have to be seriously considered.
Lee Ho-ching is director of the Center of International Programs at Chung Yuan Christian University.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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