A Japanese proposal that would set industry-specific emissions reductions for all economic powers threatened to undermine efforts yesterday to negotiate a sweeping climate change pact, delegates and environmentalists said.
Representatives from 163 countries were working into the evening to finish a work plan that would set the agenda for negotiations on reaching a climate change agreement by the end of next year.
The goal is to stabilize emissions of “greenhouse” gases blamed for global warming in the next 10 years to 15 years and cut them in half by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change that would imperil billions of people worldwide.
China, India and other developing countries led the opposition to Japan’s “sectoral” approach, which would set emissions reduction targets on industries across national boundaries, rather than on nations. They argued it was an attempt to shift the burden of responsibility for climate change from rich to poor nations.
“As to the sectoral approaches as suggested by the Japanese, we would have very strong reservations,” said Su Wei, a Chinese delegate who is responsible for the government’s climate change policy. “It is intended to substitute for targets and would shift the burden on developing countries, which are not very advanced in energy efficiency technology.”
An Indian delegate 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.
“The point the group has made is that the sectoral approach should not be seen as the solution,” said John Ashe, an Antigua and Barbados delegate who chairs the G-77.
Japan, which is struggling to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is campaigning to put its approach at the center of a future warming agreement to take effect when the Kyoto pact ends in 2012.
Kyoji Komachi, Japan’s top negotiator in Bangkok, said Japan was not using the proposal to force developing countries into the same emissions targets as wealthy industrialized nations.
The five-day UN-sponsored discussions were scheduled to end yesterday. Delegates disagreed, however, over how soon they should schedule in-depth talks on Japan’s plan.
Proponents, including the US, say this approach would ensure fair competition among steelmakers across national boundaries. It would also allow Japan to take advantage of its already high standards of energy efficiency.
China and environmentalists complained Japan was trying to force its idea on other delegates and could undermine efforts to persuade poor nations to do more to reduce their emissions. China, for one, has already set out energy efficiency targets for its economy.
On Thursday, Norway and the EU called for tougher global regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from ships and airplanes, saying they should be included in any new climate pact alongside pollutants from power plants and agriculture.
But Thailand and others opposed the plan, saying it could hurt their tourism-dependent economies. Some, including Australia and China, felt the issue was already being tackled by the industries’ respective associations.
? the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UN’s International Maritime Organization.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS