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Climate change 'harsh' reality as UN talks begin: Germany
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  • BONN (AFP) May 16, 2005
    A UN-backed meeting of 150 countries to discuss the battle against global warming opened here Monday to a stark warning from Germany that climate change was already starting to bite.

    "Climate change is already a harsh reality," Environment Minister Juergen Trittin told delegates, gathered informally to sound out positions to the UN's Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases.

    "A global warming of two degrees Celsius (3.6 F) or more (by the year 2100 over pre-industrial levels) increases the likelihood of disastrous and irreversible damage," said Trittin.

    "Can you imagine a world without the Amazon rainforest or the Greenland ice sheet? (...) Can any of you imagine what will happen if the Gulf Stream shuts down?" he asked.

    Some scientists grimly warn that if the northern polar ice melts, the rush of freshwater into the North Atlantic could shut down the Gulf Stream, a conveyor belt of warm water from the Caribbean.

    Its effect could be to plunge northwestern Europe, which owes its mild climate from this balmy current, into a mini Ice Age.

    The Kyoto Protocol, named after the 1997 UN climate conference in the Japanese city of that name, took effect in February after years of wrangling and despite opposition notably by the United States, the world's largest carbon polluter.

    It runs out in 2012.

    Kyoto requires industrialized countries which have signed and ratified it to trim output of carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other carbon gases that trap solar heat in the atmosphere instead of letting it radiate back into space.

    Kyoto's champion, the European Union (EU), says that warming of the planet is accelerating and that, in future, major developing countries must do more to help reduce carbon emissions.

    Poorer nations argue that the blame for global warming lies with rich countries, which were the first to extract the oil, coal and gas that helped create their wealth and remain the backbone of the world's energy supplies today.

    These countries also say they should not be tied to stringent emissions targets, as this could hinder their emergence from poverty.

    Argentina's environment minister, Gines Gonzalez Garcia, reminded industrialized countries in the northern hemisphere of their promise of financial aid for the south to tackle the consequences of climate change.

    Gonzalez Garcia, who presides this year over talks under Kyoto's parent treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said it was "essential" such promises become reality "to facilitate the participation of developing countries" in future negotiations.

    While protecting the climate was a challenge, Trittin said, it was also "an opportunity for modern technology."

    "Today ... billions are invested in modern climate-friendly technologies. All countries, but especially developing countries, will benefit from this."

    Australia and the United States are the only major industrialized nations not to have ratified the Kyoto protocol, although both have signed it.

    US President George W. Bush has said that meeting the Kyoto targets endorsed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, would be too expensive for the oil-dependent US economy.

    He has also argued that the deal is unfair as fast-growing, populous developing countries such as China and India are not required to make targeted emissions cuts.

    Bush has shown no sign of wavering on Kyoto or on acknowledging whether climate change is occurring, despite growing domestic and persistent international pressure.




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