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EU Ratifications Bring Kyoto Protocol Closer to Reality
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Kofi Annan |
UNITED
NATIONS, May 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The 15 European
Union members simultaneously ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol Friday,
bringing the most ambitious international attempt to fight global
warming a big step closer to reality, in the absence of the United
States.
Speaking
for the European Commission, ratified as a separate legal entity,
Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem urged the United States,
the world's biggest polluter, to reconsider its opposition to the
protocol, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
More
and more scientific evidence showed that "greenhouse" gas
pollution was a major cause of climate change, she told a news
conference, adding: "This is a problem that does not respect any
national borders."
Conceived
during the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Kyoto
agreement was signed in Japan in 1997.
Kyoto
requires industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of carbon
dioxide from 1990 levels by an average of five percent during the
period 2008-2012.
To
meet that target, EU countries as a whole must cut emissions by eight
percent, the biggest percentage reductions being made by Austria,
Britain, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg.
The
United States, accounting alone for 36.1 percent of greenhouse
emissions in 1990, refused to ratify the protocol, saying it would
cost too many jobs.
In
February, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a domestic
climate change policy with a voluntary target of cutting emissions by
30 percent by 2010.
However,
both Wallstroem and Spanish Environment Minister Jaume Matas Palou,
whose country holds the current presidency of the EU, insisted that
only multilateral agreements would work.
The
European ratifications, delivered at a public ceremony to the UN legal
counsel, Hans Corell, took the number of states parties to the
protocol to 69, satisfying one of two conditions for it to enter into
force.
Kyoto
needs to be ratified by 55 countries accounting for at least 55
percent of carbon dioxide emissions by the developed world in 1990.
With
EU members on board, the proportion jumped from about 2.4 percent to
26.6 percent, and Wallstroem called on Japan and Russia to follow suit
before the world summit on sustainable development, to begin in
Johannesburg on August 26.
But
Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk noted that even the contribution
of those two industrial powers would not be enough to reach 55
percent, and said "Canada is extremely important" to bring
the protocol into force.
Pronk
was one of four European cabinet ministers who flew to New York for
the ratification ceremony. Three other EU states were represented by
junior ministers and eight by their ambassadors to the United Nations.
Asked
whether Kyoto made any sense without the United States, Pronk said:
"I am certain they will reconsider their position very soon, if
only to be there when we negotiate new emission cuts."
He
pointed out that Kyoto was only a first step, and that larger cuts in
greenhouse emissions would be needed later.
UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the unanimous ratification of
Kyoto by the EU as "good news for the entire world".
In
a statement, Annan said "climate change is one of the greatest
challenges the world will have to face in the 21st century".
The
protocol was "a sound and innovative response to a truly global
threat affecting rich and poor countries alike," he said, and he
urged other countries to enable it to enter force as soon as possible.
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