Balance, fairness called for in reaching agreement
The Yomiuri Shimbun, Mar. 26, 2009
The following are excerpts from a recent interview with Michael Zammit Cutajar, who chairs the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. He discussed the prospects of negotiations at the 15th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC to be held in Denmark in December.
The Yomiuri Shimbun: Do you think it'll be possible to work out an agreement at the forthcoming COP15 meeting in Copenhagen?
Zammit Cutajar: It depends on what level of ambition we aim for in Copenhagen. Kyoto was a step along a road toward the objective of the Convention. Copenhagen will be another step, hopefully a big step.
Q: What do you think will be defined as success at Copenhagen, then?
A: I would say two things. One is very clear--all countries should be engaged. The other is that we move away from business as usual--we [look to] do better than we've done before.
Q: Japan is insisting on the formulation of a new protocol or revising the one agreed upon in Kyoto.
A: The United States will not want to join something called Kyoto. There's been a tremendous political push against Kyoto, and it would take a lot of energy to convince people that [the] Kyoto [Protocol] is OK, even if it's amended.
Q: Do you see any possibility of a double-track approach working?
A: There's the vision of having two places [or tracks]...The difficulty is where do you put the United States? How can you put the United States under the same type of commitment as the countries in [the] Kyoto [Protocol], but [with the United States] outside Kyoto? [Alternatively,] if the United States isn't under the same commitment, then why would Canada, Japan and the European Union want to continue with Kyoto. It's very difficult to see how that would work...Politically, people are looking for a feeling of balance, of fairness.
Q: What do you think will be necessary to achieve at Copenhagen?
A: We knew we were going for a protocol in Kyoto, so that was the focus. Here we don't and there are very strongly opposed positions. So it may not be the best use of our energy to try and resolve the legal differences [in how binding any agreement should be]. We should maybe focus more on the substance [of the agreement].
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