Sinking the planet1 July 2001
The Kyoto Protocol - the only international treaty to tackle climate change - faces a new threat from proposals announced today.
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The Bonn talks are still bogged down in a swamp created by the decision of the US to renege on Kyoto and the attempts by Japan, Australia, Canada and other to hold the ratification process to ransom. |
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Kate Hampton,
Friends of the Earth International Climate Co-ordinator
At last year's climate talks - the EU insisted that carbon sinks (the use of forests to soak up carbon dioxide) weren't an alternative to cutting greenhouse gases.
This year they seem less sure.
Australia, Japan and Canada have proposed a plan that would allow countries to -
- define what a carbon sink is
- open to abuse and potentially damaging to existing forests - set their own limits on carbon sinks
- means they might not have to cut greenhouse gas emissions at all
As a concession - the EU are proposing that any sinks would have to be capped.
Neither proposal is based on sound science (which is exactly why the EU argued against sinks last year).
