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October 27, 2005
Solving climate change will need a “transformation of society”, argues panel on the Kyoto Protocol
“We are looking at a major transformation in the atmosphere in the next 50 years,” William Moomaw of The Fletcher School warned students at a special panel on the global campaign to reduce emissions, titled “The Future of Climate Negotiations: Kyoto and Beyond.”
Four leading climate change researchers spoke at the panel, and their range of opinions and suggestions highlighted both the urgency of addressing global warming and the intense debate over the best way to move forward. The importance of the issue was underlined by the upcoming Montreal Round of climate negotiations in November and the question of whether global warming has contributed to the increase in violent hurricanes.
The October 10 panel brought together speakers with a broad range of background and opinions. Fletcher School Professor Adil Najam moderated the panel comprised of Kiliparti Ramakrishna of the Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole; Youba Sokono from the Observatory for the Sahel and Sahara (OSS), Tunis; William Moomaw of The Fletcher School; and Mukul Sanwal of the UN Climate Convention Secretariat, Bonn.
The speakers approached the issue of climate change from very different perspectives, and they disagreed on the seriousness of the crisis and the best way to resolve it.
Ramakrishna opened the discussion on a pessimistic note, warning, “There is a certain amount of worry about whether we are even on the right path.”
Although the Kyoto Protocol has come into effect without US participation, Ramakrishna said, “its effect will be minimal. After 22 years of effort we will only reduce industrialized country emissions by 1 percent, even as emissions from the developing world grow?” Ramakrishna noted. “We need to do something else, but what is that something else?” he asked.
Sokono also expressed his doubts about the Kyoto Protocol, saying, “The protocol was politically a great achievement, but practically it will not solve the problem of climate change.” He predicted increasingly acrimonious divisions between developing countries as negotiations move forward. “If we don’t deal with these issues I see no future for the process,” he warned.
In contrast, Moomaw argued the private sector in the industrialized world has actually become much more environmentally friendly even without pressure from the Kyoto Protocol. He listed many leading companies that had slashed emissions, explaining, “Corporations are making major gains in Europe, the US, Japan, and they are finding they are saving money by doing so.”
Progress has not been limited to the developed world, he said, pointing out that China plans to implements stringent fuel economy standards in 2007, now that “they recognize the political and economic implications of oil dependency.”
“Agreements like the Kyoto Protocol are important because they bring in new international methods like clean development and emissions trading. We need to test these methods, and sooner is better than later, since if they don’t work we need to try something else,” Moomaw urged.
Sanwal also noted that the debate over climate change had already begun to influence both national politics and business decisions. “Many countries did not have an energy policy several years ago,” he said. “The emergence of carbon as an issue has forced countries to develop their own energy policies.”
In the private sector, Sanwal pointed to the emergence of carbon trading, where emissions can be traded between countries like any other good.
To really resolve the problem of climate change, Sanwal argued we must find ways to not just tweak existing systems, but instead move in new directions. “What triggers transformation in societies? The problem we are dealing with requires a transformation,” he concluded.
Article by Charles DeSimone, MALD '07
Posted by jessica at October 27, 2005 03:55 PM
