Climate compromise disappoints

There is a real threat of a talks collapse in the Hague

By BBC News Online's environment correspondent Alex Kirby in The Hague

A last-minute attempt to save the climate conference here from ignominious collapse has itself run into trouble.

It rests on a compromise paper put forward by the conference president, Jan Pronk, the Dutch Environment Minister.

US TV science presenter Bill Nye shows the effects of global warming

But some delegates say its effect would be to halve the cuts in greenhouse gases the developed nations are committed to make.

They say the talks are running out of time to reach an agreement. French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet told journalists that some countries "don't want the protocol ratified and we have to ensure that this strategy fails".

The EU Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, said in a statement: "Mr Pronk's paper gives us the elements for the final phase of the negotiations. But what is proposed does not respect our bottom line, which is to ensure that the environmental integrity and credibility of the Kyoto Protocol are safeguarded.

"The paper is therefore not acceptable in its present form. There is some very hard work ahead of us over the next 24 hours if we are to get a deal."

Carbon sinks

The conference aims to finalise the workings of the international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, so that it can be ratified and enter into force.

Under it, industrialised countries have promised to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other greenhouse gases to 5.2% below their 1990 levels, with different countries having different targets.

Protesters have made their feelings felt at the conference

But several European Union delegations believe that, if Mr Pronk's paper is accepted as it stands, it would cut that figure of 5.2% to 2.2%.

This, they say, is because it would allow much wider use than they think is justified of "carbon sinks" - forests and farmland which can mop up CO2 for a time, and which countries could then claim meant they had achieved their reduction targets without actually cutting emissions at all.

One EU source told BBC News Online: "We don't want as much use of forests as this.

"The Pronk paper opens the question up far more widely than we'd like, because the science isn't there to back up this sort of use. Anyway, there's no need to do it - it's just exploiting a loophole."

Final hours

The EU is also understood to be deeply unhappy about a passage in Mr Pronk's paper, which is now the focus of high-level negotiation, which says that countries "shall meet their emission commitments primarily through domestic action".

"That word 'primarily' is too vague", said the source.

Mr Pronk (left) is offering a compromise

"How do you measure it? And the Kyoto Protocol says that paying for emission reductions in other countries to count against your own emissions shall be supplemental to domestic action."

"That does not square with 'primarily'," the source added.

Beyond these detailed criticisms of the paper, there is concern that the conference is in danger of losing its way in these final hours. "The process is falling apart", one delegate told BBC News Online.

"When Jan Pronk introduced his paper to the midnight plenary session, he tried to distance himself from it. He's wasted a lot of time in the last two days, and now it looks as if there's just too much to do. No-one has a clear map to a successful conclusion."

Causing pain

Mr Pronk told journalists he believed his paper was "balanced".

"We don't think it's balanced", said the EU source. It's biased against us. It fails to do what for us is crucial, and that's to protect the environmental integrity of the protocol."

It is inevitable with any compromise that everyone will be unhappy with it, and other delegations, including the US and Japan, have serious reservations about the paper.

Mr Pronk himself acknowledged that his proposal would cause "pain".

And international negotiations of this sort often run up to and beyond their deadlines, until sheer exhaustion wrings acceptance from the participants of the least bad option on offer.

All the same, the chances of a successful outcome here remain in the balance.