By Brian Johnson - 21st November 2005
The UK has sparked condemnation and confusion after suggesting that mandatory EU targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions could be scrapped.
Ahead of global climate change talks in Montreal next week, UK environment minister Margaret Beckett said that setting compulsory targets - the mainstay of the EU-backed Kyoto protocol strategy - was “utterly destructive to any kind of agreement”.
“People will never engage in dialogue if they thought the outcome was preconceived and…could hamper their development,” said Beckett in an interview with UK Sunday newspaper The Observer.
Beckett, who will lead the EU’s negotiating team at the COP 11 talks on November 28 in Canada, has the thorny job of trying to clinch an agreement on shaping a post-2012 Kyoto climate change deal.
Many rapidly industrialising countries such as India, China and Brazil are hostile to the setting of mandatory targets.
And the UK hinted last month that the EU’s negotiating strategy on a Kyoto successor would be based on ‘flexibility’.
“[Our strategy] shows that the EU is looking to see the processes start in Montreal but leaves a certain amount of flexibility,” said Beckett at an EU environment ministers meeting in October.
And the offering of ‘flexibility’ for developing countries on reduction targets can be seen as the initial move of Beckett’s negotiating strategy to bring them into the Kyoto fold.
Beckett’s comments could pave the way for a two-tier approach to future Kyoto reduction targets.
Developed nations could still set mandatory targets, while developing countries would have more ‘flexible’ voluntary caps.
“Targets will always have a very important role to play and will be part of a framework, but not everybody has to be in exactly the same position,” said Beckett.
But environmental groups were quick to argue that voluntary targets are ineffective.
“Voluntary targets are not worth the paper they are written on…without mandatory targets [the Kyoto protocol] is effectively dead,” said Greenpeace UK’s Stephen Tindale.
Beckett’s comments led to some confusion over the UK’s position after the British government’s chief scientific adviser appeared to contradict her volte-face.
Sir David King denied that the UK had dropped its support for compulsory targets.
And with a new UN report suggesting that the member states are set to miss their own ambitious Kyoto targets, Beckett also hinted at a possible EU shift in emphasis from national targets to sectoral caps.
Commenting on the UK’s progress, Beckett said, “We’re quite a way off at present and anxious to see what we can do to get back on track.”
The UN-sponsored COP 11 climate change talks begin on November 28 in Montreal, Canada.
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