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Friday, November 13, 1998 Published at 09:32 GMT

Climate conference goes into extra time


Climate conference goes into extra time
Environmental groups are predicting gloom for the earth's climate as time runs out at the United Nations Climate Conference in Buenos Aires.

Global warming
The United States is getting most of the blame for stalling negotiations after insisting developing countries must also cut production of greenhouse gases.

This has irked countries like China which say they must have room for industrial growth to raise living standards.

However, Argentina's President Carlos Menem has broken ranks with other developing countries by agreeing to reduce emissions.

Delegates at the conference are trying to decide how to deliver on the 1997 Kyoto treaty, which calls for developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2% below the 1990 level by 2012.

But the 180 participating countries remain deeply divided on solutions.

The three groups still in dispute represent competing trading blocs which are unwilling to take on expensive clean-up commitments that might leave them at a disadvantage with competitors.

BBC Environment Correspondent Richard Wilson says a fragile agreement is starting to emerge.

However, the final agreement must be approved by consensus and not by voting, making it impossible to deal with individual sticking points one at a time on a majority vote.

Our Correspondent says that at varying times during the night there have been as many as eight competing proposals in circulation.

The differences

Differences have also been exposed between industrialised and developing nations over the best way forward.

More than 130 countries remain outside the scope of the Kyoto protocol.

Warming warning

Most of the world's climate scientists agree on the urgent need to solve the problem.


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They predict that the global temperature will rise by up to 3.5C over the next century - greater than any climate change in the last 10,000 years.

They say sea levels will rise by anything between 15cm and 95cm by 2100 - and will go on rising for another 400 years.

A number of governments, scientists and environmentalists at the meeting have also warned there could be more extreme weather.

US boost

The United States gave the meeting a boost on Thursday with its decision to sign the Kyoto agreement - it was the last major industrial nation to do so.

However, many environmentalists said it was an empty gesture.

The US Congress must approve the agreement but its Republican party majority opposes Kyoto's current form.

Kyoto agreed on three "mechanisms" to help to reduce the cost of making the reductions: