CLIMATE: Followup to Kyoto Continues

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the group responsible for the Kyoto Protocols) held an Ad Hoc Working Group gathering in Bangkok last week. It was the first session following the December 2007 meetings in Bali (see our January 5, 2008 post for details).

As a followup to the Bali Action Plan from December 2007, at the session this week developing countries, led by China and India, requested the developed world (mainly the US and Europe) pay the bulk of the costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The argument goes: in the process of developing, western countries have contributed the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions to date. Representatives from the developed world balked and talks will resume in June in Bonn. As a side note, China brings another coal-fired power plant online each week!

In a related story, indigenous peoples from Latin America, Congo, and Indonesia, dubbed Forest Peoples, met in Amazonas State, Brazil to demand a seat at the table when the UN discusses greenhouse gas emissions and to discuss compensation (see a New York Times article). This was also a followup to the Bali conference in December 2007.

They want to be compensated for incentive to keep the forests intact. In Brazil, forest people own 12% of the country's land. In Bali it was agreed that deforestation accounts for 20% of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. The cost would be around $530 million a year by the tenth year of the agreement for developing countries. If this ever comes to pass, keeping the money out of the government's hands will also be a neat trick.