PRESS CONFERENCE BY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTION

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTION

Negotiations at a crucial climate change conference to be held at The Hague next month would involve striking a balance between the environmental integrity of the required actions, and the economic and political cost of such actions, the Executive Secretary of the Climate Change Convention said at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Executive Secretary Michael Zammatin Cutajar said the negotiations would also involve support for the actions of developing countries in addressing the climate change phenomenon, adapting to it and taking their first steps towards limiting their emissions. That was essentially an issue concerning finance, capacity-building, technology transfer and ultimately, a commitment by developing countries to shift their economies onto climate-friendly paths.

He said the conference was both about the conditions and rules for making the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change work in the market, and about encouraging developing countries to integrate the issue into their own national plans and programmes for sustainable development. The complex negotiations over those two linked questions must be brought together in a political deal at next month's talks. The big political investment in the conference placed a high premium on its success.

At the two-week conference in the Dutch capital, from 13 to 24 November, Ministers and diplomats from some 160 governments hope to conclude negotiations on how to implement the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol would bind developed countries to take the first steps towards limiting and reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases.

To enter into force, the Protocol required ratification by a certain number of the major industrialized emitting countries, Mr. Cutajar said. None of the industrialized countries was among the 30 that had already ratified the Protocol. They were all awaiting the outcome of next month's conference. The conference would be the climax of negotiations that had been going on since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.

Asked to describe the key issues for the conference, he said one would be the extent to which developed countries could use forestry and land-use change to obtain credit towards their targets. Such options were politically easier than attempts to change long-term consumption patterns, for example by persuading people to use less energy at home or in their cars.

He said that another key issue would involve a push by countries like the United States and Japan for less environment-friendly actions, as opposed to more environment-friendly actions supported by the European Union. Related to that would be the extent to which projects in land-use change and forestry would be admitted in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Other key issues to be resolved included a regime for monitoring compliance with commitments and accounting methods for national emissions and emission reduction.

Climate Change Press Conference - 2 - 31 October 2000

Responding to a question about cooperation by major oil corporations, the Executive Secretary said that Shell's advertising campaign indicated that the company was prepared to make a shift towards solar energy. BP and Amoco had made similar moves. The chairman of the Ford Motor Company had talked about shifting towards hydrogen fuel cells. Daimler-Chrysler was also looking that way.

What was the definition of success and what was the biggest impediment to a successful outcome to next month's conference? another correspondent asked.

Mr. Cutajar replied that one measure of success would be agreement by key industrial emitting countries to propose that the results of the conference were satisfactory and that their respective legislatures ratify the Protocol. If those two axes of negotiation converged, the conference would have been a success. However, those defending interests in the fossil fuel industry may drag their feet.

What was the role of sub-Saharan African countries in the Kyoto process? another journalist asked.

He said that was a moral and ethical question, noting that the sort of commitments accepted by developed countries could not be imposed on developing countries. The main priority of sub-Saharan African countries was drought and desertification rather than climate change, and they would accept it to the extent that it helped combat those two phenomena.

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