The Bali conference had sought to finalise an agenda on the basis of which countries are committed to negotiating a new agreement to be concluded by 2009. The conference took place against the backdrop of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (FAR-IPCC), which emphasised that greenhouse gases (GHGs) should peak by 2015 and that emission cuts by 2020 of 25-40 per cent by rich countries are needed to prevent the possibility of a 4 degree centigrade rise in global temperatures. The Kyoto Protocol (KP) binds signatories to reducing emission of GHGs by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels over the period 2008-2012.

It is helpful to assess the progress at Bali in terms of meeting long, medium and short-term challenges of global warming. It is also apposite to gauge evolution in this subject area in the light of recent occurrences that are symptomatic of the hype and insincerity of national governments. Starting with the long-term objective of cutting emissions in consonance with FAR-IPCC, the Bali talks failed to agree on specific targets because the US was against them. At the same time, the US was forced to drop its demand that emission targets for developing countries should be part of the road map, as also its opposition to developing countries’ demand for technological and financial help.

Indeed, judging by outcomes, the results are sobering for proponents of KP-type targets and the associated cap-and-trade system — for example, the EU-Emissions Trading Scheme. Were it not for the industrial collapse of Russia and the Ukraine, the KP’s register of GHG emissions shows an increase since 1990. In five of the EU-15 countries, emissions increased more than in the US between 1990 and 2005, and even in Japan emissions are increasing. Furthermore, determining whether reductions would have taken place in the absence of projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can be complex, which is another way of saying that we are unsure whether it has actually worked for the proximate objective of mitigating global emissions.

If the track record of present schemes to reduce emissions has been poor, recent laxity in national environmental policies is acutely worrisome for long-term GHG targets. The British oil giant, BP, is the latest oil company that will extract crude oil from tar sands found beneath prime forest in Alberta, Canada. The oil sands industry, by producing up to 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, will make it difficult for Canada to meet its commitments under the KP. Can a country that is prosperous by every conceivable measure — and is reported to have harangued developing countries at Bali to agree to emission targets — justify exploitation of such an environmentally damaging resource?

Recent research at Oxford University suggests, that the UK may be responsible for far more GHG emissions than official figures admit, once carbon embedded in imported goods and aviation is included. According to official figures, UK’s emissions are 15 per cent below that in 1990, compared to the commitment under the KP of 12.5 per cent. Emissions have been measured from the standpoint of national ‘production’ of GHGs, and not the consumption-based carbon footprint of residents of a country, which is what the latest research seeks to do. But even this is not clear-cut, since a UK resident is not the only beneficiary of a good made in, say, Asia (where emissions took place) but also the factory that made a return on its investment by exporting; the illustration underscores inherent nuances of apportioning emissions at a practical level.

On curbing deforestation, which is a medium-term objective, progress was made at Bali. Deforestation accounts for about a fifth of GHG emissions, hence commitments on reducing emissions from deforestation will be beneficial. However, adequate funding is required for the scheme to work.

Estimates for halving deforestation by 2030 are about $10 billion/year, which means that private sector financing is critical. Credits from avoided deforestation will be stored up in the same way as credits from renewable energy projects under the CDM. Another medium-term goal — that of transferring mitigation technology to developing countries — has been prominently recognised in the Bali decision document (paragraph 1d). The key will be adequate provision of subsidy for making it cost-effective for producers in poor countries to deploy abatement technology. The language hints that even intellectual property rights, specifically removal of obstacles for scaling up and transfer of technology, could be relaxed.

Help has been promised to poor countries for the immediate challenge of adapting to climate change. From my reading of the decision, there seems to be only one explicit and predictable source of funding — the adequacy and durability of the source is quite another matter. An Adaptation Fund (AF) will be established, and the AF board will be responsible for the monetisation of certified emission reductions issued by the CDM and forwarded to the AF for countries that are “vulnerable to the effect of climate change to meet the costs of adaptation”. The AF could reach US$1.2 billion by 2012, but the figure seems inadequate against the estimated average cost of 5 per cent of GDP per large disaster in low income countries. The amount pales in comparison with the $20 billion-$30 billion for a Climate Change Mitigation Facility proposed in the UN’s Human Development Report.

Environmentalists, in the absence of a specific emissions target, may conclude that there is now the risk of a real seizing up on prospects for combating global warming; as a stakeholder put it, there is a road map which lacks both signposts and a common destination. Such gloom may not be justified, since existing commitments to targets don’t seem to be delivering anyway, and appreciation that helping developing countries will be critical for meeting long-term goals is a breakthrough not to be balked at. The task is to ensure that rich countries are not allowed to get away with only making grandstanding commitments like, say, for the Millennium Development Goals, and that concomitant funding for serious undertakings given at Bali will be made available. Pessimism will be warranted if that does not happen.

The writer is a climate change researcher

urjitpatel@hotmail.com