US, Australia blow Kyoto limits

SMH

October 30, 2006
THE US and Australia are spewing out greenhouse gases well beyond the levels they agreed to before ultimately abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The findings are contained in a UN report, released today, that says greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialised world are still rising.

The US is firmly entrenched as the biggest polluter, says the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in its annual update on global-warming pollution.

Under Kyoto, which President George W Bush abandoned in 2001 because of what he cited as its cost to the US economy, the US pledged to reduce its emissions by six per cent by 2012, compared with the benchmark year of 1990.

But in 2004, it was 21.1 per cent above the 1990 benchmark year, the UNFCCC said. The increase from 2000 to 2004 was 1.3 per cent.

The report also showed that in 2004, Australia's greenhouse gas emissions were 15.8 per cent higher than Canberra had promised, under Kyoto, they would be by 2012.

Both the US and Australia signed the landmark protocol for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, but neither went on to ratify it.

The UNFCCC report said that, compared with 1990, the 41 industrialised countries it monitors trimmed their emissions by 3.3 per cent by the end of 2004.

But this was mainly due to the slump in the former Soviet bloc economies in the 1990s, which forced the closure or overhaul of thousands of power stations and factories that spewed out carbon dioxide.

Because of that historic change, countries in eastern and central Europe had a decrease in emissions from 1990-2004 of 36.8 per cent. But from 2000-2004, they in fact increased their pollution by 4.1 per cent as their economies emerged from the post-Soviet crash.

By contrast, the other industrialised countries saw an increase in pollution of 11 per cent from 1990-2004. From 2000-2004, the increase was two per cent.

"Industrialised countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the UNFCCC's executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, warned.

The report applies to so-called Annex 1 countries of the UNFCCC, the offshoot of the famous 1992 Rio Summit on the planet's environmental future and parent of the Kyoto Protocol. Annex 2 parties are developing countries and the poorer ex-Soviet republics.

The report showed the US remains by far the world's biggest polluter.

Of the 17.931 billion tonnes emitted by Annex 1 countries in 2004, 39.4 per cent was emitted by the US alone.

With 7.067 billion tonnes, the US accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of greenhouse gas pollution (ie from Annex 1 and Annex 2 countries together).

The Kyoto Protocol ratifiers have pledged to cut emissions by on average five per cent by 2012 compared with 1990.

In 2004, they were 15.3 per cent below the 1990 level, although this figure masks the effects of the economic post-Soviet slump in eastern and central Europe and some hugely varying performances.

Japan, for instance, pledged a cut of six per cent by 2012, yet in 2004 it already had an increase of six per cent over 1990. Spain is pegged to a rise of only 15 per cent by 2012 but in 2004 was already 49 per cent over the 1990 target.

De Boer was upbeat, though.

He said Kyoto countries stood a good chance of meeting their promises provided they swiftly applied pollution curbing measures and used the protocol's market mechanisms to help accelerate these programs.

Emissions by Annex 1 countries from agriculture fell by 20 per cent from 1990-2004 and from industry by 13.1 per cent. But pollution by transport rose by 23.9 per cent, reflecting that reductions in this sector "seem to be especially hard to achieve," the UNFCCC said.

Greenhouse gases are so called because, as in a stuffy greenhouse, they linger invisibly in the air. Instead of letting solar radiation bounce back into space, the gases trap it, thus warming Earth's surface.

Scientists say there is mounting evidence that the world's climate system is starting to be affected by the warming and are demanding quick, deep cuts in the gases to avert what could be a catastrophe.

The big culprits for this carbon-based pollution are oil, gas and coal - the fossil fuels on which today's prosperity was built and on which every economy still depends.

Curbing the pollution carries an economic and thus political cost, because it requires users of these fuels to be more efficient or switch to cleaner alternatives.

AFP