Climate change compromise reached

Greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by only 2%

The marathon climate change talks ended on Monday morning, with the players crawling over the finishing-line - leaden-footed and bleary-eyed.

The result, they insisted, was a success. Not a triumph, certainly - there have been too many compromises and trade-offs for that.

But the Kyoto accord on reducing greenhouse gases has at least survived the withdrawal of the United States, and 178 countries have - in principle - expressed a readiness to sign up to an extremely complicated set of rules.

The final sticking-point was the reluctance of Japan to accept the penalties for non-compliance. The chief negotiators agreed to defer this problem for another day, in order not to lose the bigger prize.

The Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said Kyoto had been successfully rescued:

"We can continue because this issue will follow us for generations to come," she said.

"And we have shown the United States and our communities and our citizens, our NGO's that we could actually come to an agreement without the United States."

Fear of failure

Margaret Beckett, Environment Secretary who headed the British delegation said after the all night session that the agreement was a major contribution to a very difficult process.

"We came here very much fearing failure and very worried about the impact that failure would have on the work towards the Kyoto Protocol," she said.

But the Kyoto Protocol - as it was signed in December 1997 - looked very different from the document signed today.

A deal was reached on Japan's objection to clauses about compliance

The EU has had to concede far greater use of what are called 'carbon sinks': the theory is that countries like Canada, Russia and Japan can use their huge forest areas - which absorb carbon dioxide - to offset the amount emissions have to be reduced by industrial and transport users.

In addition, developing countries will be able to plant forests and claim the same exemptions.

Many observers, including Professor Phil Jones, from Climate Change Research Department at the University of East Anglia, believe the compromises in Bonn had been designed simply to keep Kyoto afloat.

One seriously unsatisfactory aspect of the entire proceedings was the absence of US negotiators, representing the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases. President Bush's outright rejection of Kyoto left them with nothing more to say.

US government observers did attend, as did US environmental groups, who hope the agreement - whatever its shortcomings - will still be a powerful stick with which to beat the Bush administration.

Phillip Clapp, President of America's National Environmental Trust, one of many organisations present in Bonn, said the "unilateralism and isolationism" of the US were very unpopular.

"When the United States won't lead Europe can and will," he said.

He disagreed that the trade-offs rendered the deal insubstantial, describing it as very close to the agreement that was on the table at the unsuccessful talks at The Hague.

Japan on board

Of those present though, it was Japan who had the greatest obstacles to overcome.

Britain's environment minister, Michael Meacher, explained Japan's change of mind.

"The Japanese wanted to sign up but they the question of international supervision for sovereign states is a very sensitive issue," he said.

"We have a two-stage process whereby the legal instruments - if they are going to be agreed - will be agreed at the first meeting of the parties, probably in 2003," he added.

The EU's environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom denied that it had been suggested to the Japanese that the rules would not be legally enforced if they signed.

"The issue is the legally binding character of the consequences of non-compliance. It [has been] decided that we should continue to discuss this," she said.

She added that most of the signatories wanted to ratify the agreement as soon as possible - perhaps during 2002, driven principally by the mounting material evidence of climate change.