Lending support to a demand from developing countries for extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union Tuesday favored the continuation of the global pact that is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Lending support to a demand from developing countries for extension of
the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union Tuesday favored the continuation of the
global pact that is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"The Kyoto Protocol should be extended for some time, but I can't say what
that sometime would be," EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik told a
news conference. He didn't give any reason for the EU's proposal for continuing
with the pact.
Potocnik's comments come ahead of the ministerial-level United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change scheduled for November in
Durban
. The
Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012 with no new treaty in the near
horizon.
Developing countries including
India
have
demanded an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and are opposed to any legally
binding emissions cut. An extension of the Kyoto Protocol will help fill the
vacuum until a new agreement is in place.
Several rich countries aren't in favour of extending the pact until the
U.S.
and
China
agree
to binding emission cuts. The
U.S.
and
China
, two
of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, aren't signatories to the
Kyoto Protocol.
Environment ministers of various countries met in
Pretoria
last
month to prepare grounds of negotiations between developed and developing
nations on issues such as legally binding caps on emissions, extension of the
Kyoto Protocol and funding of green energy projects in developing
countries--all aimed at reducing global warming.
Potocnik also said that discussions on climate change are unlikely to be
affected by the current financial crisis in
Europe
.
"I don't see the prevailing crisis in
Europe
and
elsewhere impacting the
Durban
talks," he said. "The global climate crisis is bigger than the
financial crisis."
He said that the EU won't change its policy that mandates all flights by non-EU
carriers to and from an airport in the territory of an EU member state to be in
its emissions trading system.
"If you don't comply, you have to pay," he said.
India
and
25 other nations including the
U.S.
and
China
are
opposed to the EU's plan to include airlines in its system to limit greenhouse
gas emissions.
"We are willing to talk about it but there is no question of going
backward," he said.
The potentially costly system of limiting emissions requires all airlines, from
Jan. 1, 2012
, to
hold permits that allow them to emit carbon dioxide during any flight landing
at or taking off from an EU airport.
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