Climate decades were treated as "dysfunctional" U.S. Cap Delays

Delegates at the climate negotiations the United Nations stayed two nights in a row last week to agree on a proposal to curb global warming. negotiations next year may be even more difficult.

The plan approved on December 11 channel creates a climate fund as much as $ 100 billion a year in aid to developing nations in 2020, protects the forest and describes methods to verify the reduction of fossil fuel emissions. No new targets to reduce greenhouse gases were established, and the debate on the future of the Kyoto Protocol which limits emissions of developed countries until 2012, was postponed until the next meeting in Durban, South Africa in December 2011.

With President Barack Obama are fighting to save his energy agenda and the richest and poorest in the conflict to extend the Kyoto emission limits, a new climate treaty in the world can be 20 years away, said Tim Wirth, who in 1997 led the U.S. delegation in Kyoto, Japan. This delay threatens the future of $ 2.7 billion a year in pollution credits sold at a United Nations program based on the Kyoto agreement.

"We have a dysfunctional Congress and an administration without politics," said Wirth, former Democratic senator from Colorado, in an interview two weeks of negotiations on the UN climate in Cancun, Mexico. "The U.S. does not have an energy strategy. You can not sign an international treaty unless you know what you do at home."

A dispute over extend emissions cuts after 2012 under the Kyoto plan, which calls for a decline of 5.2 percent of 1990 levels between industrial nations, nearly derailed the conference this year in the United Nations.

China vs Japan

China, India, Brazil and South Africa puts pressure on developed countries to make further cuts. Japan, Russia and Canada all said they did not want to extend Kyoto unless the two largest emitters, China and the U.S., are brought into the covenant.

Delegates papered in the gap by keeping alive the prospect of enlargement of Kyoto, while not setting new targets for pollutants. Bolivia was the only voice among the 193 nations present objections to this decision, saying it was not ambitious enough. exception of Bolivia was annulled.

"The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol, in particular the United States so many years away from even having a serious discussion, would actually wind climate change negotiations," said Kevin Conrad, Papua New Guinea sent to the talks, in an interview.

Obama, who ran for president with the promise of promoting a U.S. system cap and trade to reduce emissions and combat climate change, failed to get the legislation in the Senate this year. Then the Republicans - including those who disagree with the notion of anthropogenic climate change - won control of the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate in the November election.

Legislative Delay

Obama now says that climate legislation probably can not win congressional approval until 2013 at the earliest. That means that the Kyoto emission limits expire before the U.S. provides legislation to support its commitments to reduce emissions, making it unlikely that developing countries cut their own garment.

"The U.S. must take the initiative because, if the United States sits and does nothing, then the world will not react, especially the developing world," said Dow Chemical Co. CEO Andrew Liveris in an interview in Cancun, where he joined other executives from lobbying countries to take action.

U.S. Head of Delegation, Todd Stern, Cancun, Obama reaffirmed the promise of reducing emissions by 17 percent in 2020, a promise depends on domestic law to back it up.

Kyoto driven the development of the world's largest market for carbon, the European Union emissions trading system, and its second largest, the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations to help companies meet the objectives of gas greenhouse.

Carbon Market

The market for emissions credits could reduce carbon dioxide by 3.9 percent to $ 122 billion dollars this year to 127 billion U.S. dollars last part because of uncertainty about the next round of emissions रेदुक्टिओंस.
"The reality is that the talks would struggle unless and until the U.S. can bring something more substantial to the negotiating table," said Mark Lewis, carbon market analyst based in Paris for Deutsche Bank AG.

Inertia in the stimulation of technology and low carbon clean energy can hinder U.S. companies, said Jennifer Haverkamp, director general of international politics at the Environmental Defense Fund.

"They see they are falling behind because they have no price signal to innovate and be part of the economy of the future," he said. "Other countries are taking serious measures. One of these days the Senate is going to wake up and instead of shaking in their boots, afraid to go first, you will realize that you're last."

China 'Warp Speed'

Some executives say that the emergence of China as a competitive force must change the mood in Washington and the Obama system to act on the environment faster. China is gaining an advantage over U.S. in clean technologies, said Duke Energy Corp. CEO Jim Rogers.

"What they are doing is a world leader in solar and wind energy, they are building 24 nuclear plants," Rogers said in an interview in Cancun. "They're much movement in that direction at full speed, ahead of the U.S."

China plans to increase installed power generation capacity of 90 gigawatts of wind power and 5 gigawatts of solar energy by 2015. A nuclear reactor in comparison with a capacity of about 1.6 gigawatts.

Competition from clean energy companies in China, as Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. and Trina Solar is reducing profit margins for the U.S. wind and solar companies like First Solar Inc. and business of General Electric Co. 's wind turbine.

'Muddled'

"The concern especially in China has become the head," said Elliot Diringer, vice president of international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.

"For years the line was that we should not do anything because China is not doing anything. Now the concern is that, 'Oh my God, China is ahead of us in the race for clean technologies.'d Better catch up. '"

talks this year the United Nations pledged to keep increases in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Emission reductions pledged today can produce an increase of 5 degrees by the year 2100, the United Nations Environment Programme said 23 November.

That leaves the island countries like Kiribati, the South Pacific, northeast of Australia concern for their future. Houses are already being drawn, eroded roads and communities displaced by rising sea levels linked to climate change, President Note Tong said in an interview.

"The negotiation process will continue over the coming decades," said Tong. "We do not expect everything to be resolved before implementing what it takes? Going to be too late for many countries. It is the survival of people."