Summit a flop unless deeper cuts agreed

Thursday, 13 August 2009 09:03

A U.N. climate deal due in December will be a flop unless industrialized nations sharply increase promised cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for 2020, the chair of a key U.N. group said on Wednesday August 13.

John Ashe, who leads work at Aug 10-14 U.N. climate talks looking at planned cuts by rich nations, said existing pledges were far short of the range of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels outlined by a U.N. scientific panel as required to avoid the worst of climate change.

"It would be difficult to fall outside that range and judge the outcome as a success," Ashe told Reuters at the 180-nation meeting. Ashe is also Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador to the United Nations.

"Based on pledges that are currently on the table, achieving 25 percent is looking quite a stretch," Ashe said of the negotiations, part of a series meant to end with a new U.N. climate pact in Copenhagen in December.

So far, promises by those in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol -- all industrialized nations except the United States -- amount to total cuts of between 15 and 21 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, according to the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Adding the United States would reduce the overall level of ambition since President Barack Obama's goal is to cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. They rose sharply under his two predecessors. (Source: Reuters)