Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The chief executive officer of Air New Zealand, Rob Fyfe, has lambasted the international community for wasting time debating regulatory frameworks. "These policy discussions and the hand-wringing over agreeing emission reduction targets are interminable and they are distracting us from the far more important focus of taking action. This is simply a travesty," he said. "Whether under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization] or elsewhere, it's the same procrastination; multiple conferences of many thousands; turgid presentations and inequitable albeit politically acceptable backroom deals determining the shape of unwieldy global agreements at a glacial pace," he continued.

Fyfe was speaking at the Greener Skies conference in Hong Kong. He called on the aviation industry to "operate in the most responsible manner – flying 'fit for mission' equipment, with high load factors, investing in continuous operational improvements and putting our collective efforts towards developing and embracing leading edge technologies that make a difference." In a keynote address, Tony Tyler, chief executive of Cathay Pacific Airways and chair of the International Air Transport Association Board of Governors, called for international aviation emissions to be addressed under a comprehensive global sectoral approach under a future climate regime. "There must be a recognition that international aviation, as a global industry, is best tackled at a global level by a single global sectoral agreement, encompassing all air transport operators," he said. "After all, how can the emissions from an international flight be assigned to one country for measurement, quota and reduction purposes? Which country? The origin? The destination? Those which are overflown?"

Members of the G77 group of developing nations walked out of the Bangkok Climate Change Talks in protest at moves to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a completely new agreement in the post-2012 climate regime. "Do we keep totally separate regimes for the two constituencies, or do we start building what the United States calls a continuum that includes both - that's the big question," said Claire Parker, consultant to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The G77 is extremely concerned that developed countries who are party to the Kyoto Protocol might not agree to new targets for the second commitment period of the Protocol, Alf Wills, spokesman for South Africa, told Reuters. "The G77 rejects the notion and proposal to collapse or 'cut and paste the good parts of the Kyoto Protocol' (one wonders what the bad parts are) into a new single legal instrument under the Convention," he said.

The European Union is concerned that the Kyoto framework does not permit the inclusion of developing nations in a single global agreement. "We can all continue to argue in favour of maintaining Kyoto. We think that's not enough. We need to have a wider participation. We're not convinced we will get this into the Kyoto Protocol as we know it," stated European Commission delegate Karl Falkenberg. "If the United States joined with other countries in the developed world without other major economies [such as India and China], we don't solve the problem," said United States negotiator Jonathan Pershing. The United States came in for criticism over its failure to commit to a tough emissions target for the year 2020. "I think that they are in an uncomfortable position since they cannot put on the table any figures unless the Congress process is clearer," commented Fernando Tudela from Mexico. "They are increasingly identified as a stumbling block for the negotiations and it's up to them to dispel this perception and to show the real leadership we're expecting from them," he continued. The heated debate notwithstanding, Yvo de Boer, head of the climate treaty secretariat, remained optimistic. "This is the first time over the past two years that we have seen this kind of constructive focus on how we are actually going to make this thing work," he said.

The global economic crisis provides the world with a "unique window of opportunity" to adopt a path that will limit the rise in global temperature to less than two degrees Celsius, says Faith Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA is predicting that energy-related carbon emissions will fall by three per cent in 2009 compared to 2008, the steepest drop in 40 years. The forecast is from the latest World Energy Outlook, a excerpt from which has been released early as a contribution to December's critical climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen.

The ETA report argues that the economic downturn could put the global energy system on a trajectory that would stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide-equivalent and limit the increase in global temperature to around two degrees Celsius. To achieve this end, the use of fossil fuels must peak before 2020, with energy-related carbon emissions not more than six per cent higher than they were in 2007. "The message is simple and stark," said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka. "If the world continues on the basis of today's energy and climate policies, the consequences of climate change will be severe. Energy is at the heart of the problem – and so must form the core of the solution."