KYOTO, Japan—With final COP3 negotiations centering on greenhouse gas cuts of about 5 percent, Washington suddenly presented a new proposal on Dec. 9 that the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand team up with Russia to reduce gas emissions jointly—a move apparently aimed at breaking the current stalemate over reduction targets.
U.S. senators told a news conference on Dec. 10 that there is a strong possibility of an agreement on a Kyoto protocol. They said, however, that it is important that the protocol includes the involvement of developing nations in the gas reduction effort.
The new U.S. proposal calls for an unlimited "bubble" approach in which the nations conduct "emissions trading" to achieve reduction targets. The method is comparable to the European Union's so-called bubble approach, in which its 15 member nations would collectively achieve a gas reduction target.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, a chief U.S. negotiator at the COP3 conference on global warming, presented the proposal while intensive negotiations on reducing emissions continued between Japan, the United States and the EU until around 2 a.m. on Dec. 10.
Representatives from more than 150 countries have been negotiating a treaty to introduce legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since the U.N.-sponsored Third Session /f)the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change opened Dec. 1.
A key agreement still remained elusive after Japan, the United States and the European Union held predawn negotiations in a last-ditch effort to reach agreement on legally binding targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which sources said centered on a reduction of around five percent.
As the negotiations at the COP3 conference continued into its 10th and final day, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who was in Tokyo, telephoned some European political leaders on Dec. 9 and on Dec. 10 and asked for their help in securing a Kyoto agreement. Hashimoto talked to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and U.S. President Bill Clinton.
According to sources, EU negotiators pressed for a common reduction goal higher than 5 percent, but Japan and the United States are against such a target.
The primary goal of the conference is to adopt a Kyoto protocol that would set post-2000 targets for limiting or reducing the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
The Dec. 9 final-hour negotiations involving Japan, the United States and the EU began at night after COP3 conference chairman Raul Estrada presented a draft protocol calling for an average 5 percent gas reduction in the developed world below 1990 levels, to be achieved in 2006 to 2010.
Estrada's move was designed to prompt key nations to work for a compromise on legally binding targets that would be acceptable to their governments.
The proposal was submitted to the Committee of the Whole—a key policy-making body of the COP3 conference—for approval.
However, the committee's meeting was suspended on Dec. 9 because Japan, the United States and the EU failed to arrive at common ground on such key issues as reduction targets and how many heat-trapping gases should be included in an agreement.
Japanese officials said Estrada unveiled the proposal before securing the backing of participating nations.
It remains to be seen what kind of role the Estrada proposal will play in the final phase of the conference, which is to end on Dec, 10. According to the proposal, the United States would cut emissions by 5 percent, Japan by 4.5 percent and the European Union, which groups 15 nYty=9M1by 8 percent.
The proposal lists 23 nations and the 15 EU members. Australia would be allowed to increase emissions by 5 percent, Greece by 10 percent and Norway by 5 percent. New Zealand would stabilize its emissions at 1990 levels.
The proposal is currently what is being called the three-plus-three approach. It would cover only three gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the initial protocol. The three other major heat-trapping gases—hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphurhex—would be discussed at next year's COP4 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
After hours of suspension, the committee resumed its session on Dec. 10 and Estrada reported the results of informal consultations conducted among participating nations.
Estrada said while the developed nations had made progress in some areas of negotiations, the draft protocol needed some revisions. ^-0- ^Distributed by New York Times Special Features/Syndication Sales Publication Date : 1997-12-11
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