The Second Conference Of The Parties U.N. Framework Convention On Climate Change (FCCC) wrapped up in Geneva on July 19, 1996 as one hundred and thirty four governments adopted a Ministerial Declaration that committed themselves to the negotiation of "legally binding" greenhouse gas targets aimed at "substantial overall" reductions for industrialized countries by the end of 1997. They also said that the continued increase in greenhouse gas concentrations would lead to "dangerous" climate change.
Based on the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC SAR) the Ministers have found that "The continued rise of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will lead to dangerous interference with the climate system, given the serious risk of an increase in temperature and particularly the very high rate of temperature change".
The IPCC is the pre-eminent international UN body for assessing the science and impacts of climate change. Established in 1988 under both the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization and the United Nation’s Environment Programme, the IPCC released its First Assessment Report in 1990. The release of the 1990 assessment led to the negotiation and signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
The IPCC SAR is the follow up assessment to IPCC s First Assessment report published in 1990. Over 2,500 climate change experts were involved in the current assessment of IPCC. The IPCC Second Assessment Report strengthens and extends its1990 warnings over the adverse consequences of climate change. The highlight of the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC is the critical new conclusion that the signs of climate change are already becoming evident, and that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate."
Despite the IPPCC's sombre warnings, not all governments are yet willing to take the responsible measures. For example, aligning itself with the OPEC countries Australia refused to agree to the paragraph in the declaration that called for legally binding targets for substantial emission reductions. New Zealand placed an economic caveat on its acceptance of this crucial paragraph. Fourteen countries rejected the declaration in its entirety: Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Qatar, Jordan, Nigeria, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan and the Russia Federation.
Japan failed to exercise real leadership at the meeting which does not bode well for its crucial role in Kyoto next year.
While Greenpeace views the Ministerial Declaration as an important development in what has been frustratingly slow negotiations, the Declaration by itself is insufficient.
Specifically, it is disappointing that the Ministers failed to:
Furthermore, Greenpeace is concerned that a statement proposed by the European Union that global climate temperatures should not be allowed to exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels was not included. Even this limit is too weak to prevent dangerous levels of sea-level rise for many small islands and heavily populated coastal regions of the world.
As Ambassador Slade of Western Samoa told the Ministers ultimately returning CO2 to near current levels will be necessary to prevent dangerous levels of sea-level rise. This would correspond to a tempertature increase of less than 1 degree above pre-industrial levels.
The Ministerial Declaration adopted only very weak wording on the need for industrialzed countries to take further action. Most countries are failing to meet their legally binding commitment to adopt policies and measure to bring their emissions back to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Greenpeace believes that countries that fail to take sufficient measures are in breach of their legal obligations under the climate convention.
The Ministerial Declaration resulted from a positive step forward by the United States, which after years of obstruction, called for legally binding targets. The Ministerial Declaration's significance is that it calls for "legally binding" emission obligations for "significant overall" emission reductions. This provides very strong direction to the final stage of the Berlin Mandate and lead up to the Third Conference of the Parties (COP-3) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997.
The Ministerial Declaration came none too soon. The dangers climate change caused by human induced global warming were highlighted reports Greenpeace released at the Geneva meeting:
The Net Emissions Approach Unsafe
The Ministerial Declaration is all the more significant as the powerful lobby of oil producing nations and the fossil fuel industry campaigned vigorously to discredit the science of climate change, the IPPCC, and to frustrate any action on reducing greenhouse gases. In the report 'The Scourge of the Skeptics - Industry Attacks on the IPCC Second Assessment Report', Greenpeace exposed the political agenda of the global fossil fuel lobby and its financial sponsorship of scientific skeptics of climate change.
The positive step taken at COP-2 must now be translated into concrete action on the part of the world's governments. World leaders, leading up to the Third Conference of the Parties in 1997, will come under extreme pressure from oil producing countries and the fossil fuel industry to retreat from the Ministerial Declaration and to do little or nothing in terms of legally binding controls on CO2 emissions.
Only persistent demands for effective controls on greenhouse gas emissions by the public will ensure that governments will not buckle under this pressure. A failure on the part of governments to agree to "legally binding" emission obligations for "significant overall" emission reductions at COP-3 in Kyoto, will have disastrous effects on present and future generations. We must not allow that to happen.
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