Kyoto can't do the job alone says expert

By BRIAN FALLOW

One of the world's top thinkers on climate change, Eileen Claussen, says more than just the Kyoto Protocol is needed to tackle the issue.

The protocol must be buttressed with other approaches, Claussen told the Business Herald in Auckland.

Claussen is the head of the highly regarded Pew Centre for Global Climate Change in the US.

The Kyoto Protocol is set to come into force in three months, after President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed Russia's ratification of the treaty and delivered the critical mass of international support it required to become binding.

But the Kyoto community (Europe, Japan, Canada and New Zealand) accounts for only about a third of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases.

The United States, the largest emitter, pulled out and the treaty imposes no obligations on developing countries, which are expected collectively to overtake developed countries in emissions within 20 years or so.

At a conference on climate change and business in Auckland, Australia's new Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, stressed the need to look beyond Kyoto.

"It is pure stupidity, a sham, crazy and dangerous not to engage the developing world and the major emitters," he said.

Claussen, who was a senior environment official in the Clinton Administration and whose Washington-based think tank is backed by some of the world's largest corporations, said there was no single solution, including the Kyoto approach of national caps and emissions trading, that worked for everybody.

"I think we have to be cognisant of the fact that different approaches might work for different groups of countries. What is important is that they start down this path in a serious way."

The strength of the Kyoto approach is that it harnesses the power of the market.

By allowing trading in emission allowances and emission reduction certificates, it gives countries or individuals flexibility to meet their targets in the lowest cost way, either by physically cutting emissions or by buying excess credits from others who have exceeded their targets.

But while Kyoto is the only multilateral game in town, it is limited in its coverage and modest in its environmental outcomes.

The Pew Centre has been looking at what a more comprehensive and effective regime might be like, given the geopolitical realities.

The Kyoto approach of national targets and emissions trading would be part of it.

But it might include different kinds of targets for different groups of countries, Claussen suggested.

Some targets could be, like the existing ones, absolute reductions in emissions. But others could be relative to gross domestic product, so that they at least delivered less emission-intensive economic growth.

Some countries, especially developing ones, might be interested only in "no lose" targets, which rewarded a country for exceeding an emissions target but did not penalise it if it fell short of it.

"But you need another track which is sectoral, especially for cars and coal."

Automotive and coal industries account for between 60 and 70 per cent of global emissions.

Claussen doubts the kind of national, economy-wide targets that countries will be willing to set themselves under the Kyoto framework will be stringent enough to deliver the technological changes those sectors need to undergo, which would require a huge investment over a long period.

Kyoto's limited coverage creates competitive or free-rider problems for firms in Kyoto countries which have to compete with those in the same sector in non-Kyoto countries.

International sector-specific agreements might get around that.

"I'm not sure you could do it for steel or aluminium but you might be able to do it for cars, because it is a highly concentrated industry, she said.

"There are only so many big car-making firms and countries. And there is only a certain number of countries which count as consumers," she said.

"What you need is some sort of partnership among those, with a set of milestones: not picking a technology, because all the auto companies have their own preferred pathways, but setting some performance goals and letting companies meet them."

The sort of thing that might act as a catalyst to such an agreement is California's proposal to impose ambitious emissions standards on vehicles.

"California has always been a leader on auto standards of all kinds. It will be challenged, no question, by the automobile industry.

"But if California is successful in defending its case, New York and some other states have said they will follow its lead, which is what happened with other pollutants from automobiles."

Something other than Kyoto was also needed to deal with coal, Claussen said.

"Some of the biggest emitters, including the United States, China and India, have huge coal resources. They are going to use them. We have to find a way to use coal so that it does not create a climate problem."

That will require a huge research and development effort on carbon capture and sequestration.

The Kyoto track should be pursued and continued, she said, "but I think we need a series of other tracks as well".

"If a country could agree to participate in some of the sectoral work and have an energy policy with clear milestones, maybe that's as good as being on the Kyoto track."