Climate: after New York, a long way to Copenhagen
The UN climate summit, supposed to relaunch the negotiation of a new agreement against global warming in Copenhagen, disappointed expectations on Tuesday for lack of major announcements from the main players, in particular the United States and China. However, even in the absence of concrete announcements, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was convinced that "a fair, effective and ambitious agreement is possible in Copenhagen".
"We still have a long way to go, but we must maintain the political momentum" until then, he said, summarizing the work. According to him, "a growing number of leaders have shown themselves ready to go beyond their strict national interests." Less than 100 days of the United Nations Climate Conference in December in the Danish capital, M. Ban gathered for a day a hundred heads of state and government in order to give a political impetus to discussions "at a standstill", in the words of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. This meeting allowed, during round tables mixing developing and industrialized countries, an exchange of views between leaders. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen took the opportunity to invite them "to join Copenhagen in December", judging that the success of the conference, initially planned at ministerial level, would depend on their "continuous" investment. Previously, Mr. Sarkozy had already suggested to the main economies, which represent 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, to meet at the top in mid-November "to clarify their commitments" and "to ensure the success of Copenhagen". The future treaty, whatever form it takes, will have to guarantee ambitious commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in order to contain the soaring global thermostat, if possible below 2 additional degrees. China has pledged to reduce the growth of its CO2 emissions and progressively loosen its dependence on fossil fuels - especially coal - to gradually increase the share of non-fossil energies to 15%. Without precise targets, this announcement does not meet the enormous expectations that it aroused in recent days, including within the UN. However, noted the French Minister for Sustainable Development, Jean-Louis Borloo, "even without the magic of numbers, this is the first time that China has thus declined its national commitments to the international community". China "shows an impressive spirit of initiative", also noted the former US vice-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. But for President Barack Obama, "the hardest part remains to be done". He called on the major developing countries to "take their part" in the fight against global warming, but without mentioning additional efforts on the part of his country. What no one was waiting for, both the US administration is trapped in a national agenda tense with the debate on health insurance. The two Belgian ministers participating in the summit, Yves Leterme (Foreign Affairs) and Paul Magnette (Climate and Energy), however regretted the "caution" of the American president who refrained from quoting a new quantified target for American gas emissions Greenhouse effect. Japan, on the other hand, confirmed its objective of reducing its polluting emissions by 25% by 2020 "by all possible tools", underlined the new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who announced reinforced financial and technological support to developing countries. M.
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