NEW UN DRAFT PROPOSES GLOBAL EMISSION CUT BY 2050

Adianto P. Simamora
THE JAKARTA POST/COPENHAGEN

The president of the UN climate conference has finally tabled a new negotiating draft to speed up talks to avert a very likely deadlock as negotiators between rich and developing countries remain stalled over basic issues.

The draft text offered the range of global targets on emissions cuts from 50 to 95 percent by 2050 but did not elaborate on the total funds earmarked for developing and poor countries to mitigate climate change.

""I think it is important for the developed countries to commit to a reduction target but emerging countries should also come up with commitment to action [on emission cuts],"" Connie Hedegaard, the president of the Conference of Parties (COP), told reporters on the sideline of the conference without elaborating further.

The draft says the parties should collectively reduce emissions by at least 50, 85 or 95 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels and should ensure global emissions continue to decline thereafter.The draft was made just two days before negotiators finished their task of drafting an expected outcome.

However, the negotiating process has been protracted with only a few paragraphs agreed to in the last four days.The COP presidents draft consists of only six pages compared to the original 161 pages.More than 110 world leaders, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will attend the closing summit on Dec. 18.

Indonesian negotiators declined to comment on the new draft text. Kim Carstensen, the head of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, said the text provided a basis to make the right political decisions.""It contains many gaps, exposes rifts but also clearly shows that an agreement is possible,"" he said.

""The gaps are now visible and need to be filled by political will and concrete financial commitment. We still dont know how much money there will be and where it will come from.""The draft text was also made just hours after the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) submitted their proposal to safeguard the climate and to ensure the future survival of its 43 member states.

Grenada Ambassador Dessima Williams representing AOSIS insisted the Copenhagen talks adopt two protocols to protect the planet from devastating impacts from climate change.""We have put forward a proposal for a legally binding agreement to secure twin objectives of the survival of the Kyoto Protocol and to strengthen the UNFCCC with a new [Copenhagen] Protocol that can be adopted in Copenhagen,"" she said.

She said such protocols were crucial to head off the devastating impacts of climate change.
The new targets would also be reflected in a new protocol to be adopted under the Convention, sitting side by side with legally binding targets for the United States and other rich nations currently bound by the Kyoto Protocol.

Ambassador Collin Beck from the Solomon Islands agreed the proposal would strengthen the second
commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol following the end of the first period in 2012.

""Our proposal does [put] forward amendments to secure a strengthened second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol and put forward a new protocol to be adopted under the Convention which would result in legally binding targets for the US,"" Beck said.

The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 rich nations to slash emissions by five percent from 1990 levels, but the United States refused to ratify it.Mohamed Aslam from the Republic of Maldives said the AOSIS proposal would help countries to not only adapt to climate change but to also achieve the goal of becoming carbon-neutral countries.