Greek environment minister slams US

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ENVIRONMENT Minister George Souflias branded the outcome of the UN conference on climate change in Bali as "poor" and said that it did no more than offer a "ray of hope" for the future.

Souflias, who has been criticised for his ministry's apparent lack of preparation for the two-week conference, said that the countries that contributed 85 percent of global greenhouse emissions - the US, Russia, China, India, Australia, Canada and Japan - showed no will to commit to the achievement of specific emission-cutting goals.

Australia did, however, become the 37th signatory of the Kyoto Protocol at the start of the conference, leaving the US the only industrialised nation not to have joined the UN-brokered commitment to curbing global greenhouse emissions.

Kyoto signatories must reduce greenhouse emissions by a modest 5 percent relative to their 1990 levels by 2012.

"Although the goal of the Bali conference was to reach an international agreement on specific binding measures for the reduction of greenhouse emissions and to decide on a process that would lead, by 2009, to a new protocol to replace the Kyoto Protocol, this did not prove possible," said Souflias.

He added: "The outcome, you could say, was poor."

Emission cuts of greenhouse gases by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 were written into early drafts of what is referred to as the Bali "roadmap", but they had to be stripped out at the insistence of the delegation from the US, as well as a handful of other nations.

Also absent from the final document was the suggestion of the joint Nobel prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to limit any rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius compared to 1900 levels, and to keep heat-trapping gases below 445 parts per million.

Souflias, who was represented at the conference by his deputy, Stavros Kaloyannis, did, however, stress that there was some progress made: namely a commitment to help developing nations combat the effects of climate change and deforestation, and to support the countries most vulnerable to climate change through investment.

Souflias pointed out that the country was in a far better position than many other European Kyoto signatories - for instance, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Greece is unlikely to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitment, even though it has been allowed to increase emissions by 25 percent relative to 1990 levels.

Souflias highlighted that 150 Greek businesses would be reducing their greenhouse emissions by more than 15 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2012. He did not, however, mention the Public Power Corporation, which is responsible for almost half the country's emissions.

Turning the tables

Souflias' fundamentally negative picture of the Bali conference was, however, not shared by some of the Greek delegates who attended.

Theodoros Skylakakis, the one-time deputy mayor of Athens and now the foreign ministry's general secretary for international economic affairs, told this newspaper that the continued commitment of the US to being involved in a post-Kyoto climate change agreement was a success in itself.

"Ignoring the highest expectations, the outcome was encouraging," Skylakakis said. "There were important strides taken in areas such as the adaptation fund [how countries affected by climate change will have to adapt their agriculture and infrastructure because of increasingly erratic weather conditions], on the issue of deforestation and reforestation and on transferring technology to developing countries."

He hastened to defend the United States, which has been the easiest target of criticism on climate change. "We have to be careful when judging America's position. It is the largest economy in the world and still the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, although China is likely to take this position within a decade. As a consequence, any engagement that has a serious chance of succeeding must include the US. It is important that they are at the table."

Minimum basis of agreement

Spyros Kouvelis, a Pasok MP but formerly a WWF conservation director, member of the global convention on the conservation of wetlands and head of the UN sustainable development programme for the Mediterranean, insisted that the climate at the Bali talks was unlike any he had attended before.

"Throughout my career, I have been to many of these conferences," he said. "What was impressive about this conference was the number of delegates participating - something like 20,000, including NGOs and other bodies. The stakes were pretty high.

"In the end, on the quantitative side, the only figures agreed to by the US were a 50 percent reduction [in greenhouse emissions] by 2050, which is a very long time from now. I do not consider that this is worth even mentioning at this stage.

He added: "However, we now have the opportunity to negotiate the quantitative targets over the next two years. There is definitely a change in [negotiating] climate. The global pressure on the US was very high. The US was trying to push its own conference in Hawaii next year [where limited, voluntary reductions in greenhouse emissions are to be promoted], but they found themselves increasingly isolated. This did not give them much leeway for opposition. They had to back off from their initial position. I was hoping for a quantitative engagement, so I am disappointed. But at least we have a minimum basis of agreement."

Another "minimum" for Kouvelis was the number of Greek delegates in Bali - 12, not including himself. Of those only five were from the environment ministry, made up of four scientists and the deputy minister.

"This was a very important conference," Kouvelis said. "It is not as if Greece was ever going to go there as a main negotiator, but the image of the country is very important. If we are saying we want to be a serious part of the EU's position, then we should have been working months in advance to set up a good delegation through discussions."

Author: Thrasy Petropoulos
Thrasy Petropoulos writes for the Athens News.
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