Argentina And Kazakhstan Join Frontlines In Battle Against Global Warming

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today praised Kazakhstan and Argentina for their leadership at the international negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which concluded in Bonn, Germany, today. The negotiators are deciding how to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty designed to limit the harmful impacts of global warming.

Kazakhstan, an oil-producing state, formally reiterated its commitment to join Annex I of the Framework Convention, which, under the Kyoto accord, is the first step in taking on a legally binding limit of total emissions of greenhouse gases. Many nations welcomed this announcement. International negotiators will decide on the request at their meeting in The Hague, Netherlands, in November 2000.

Earlier in the week, Argentina presented its own strategy for limiting the increase in its greenhouse gas emissions under a formula linking its commitment to changes in the country’s gross domestic product.

“Kazakhstan and Argentina have shown that developing countries and other non-Annex I countries can do their share to cut the pollution that fuels global warming,” said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, EDF’s chief scientist. “While the leadership of the industrialized countries in cutting greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely critical, the fight against climate change can’t be won without the participation of all major emitting nations.”

“Kazakhstan’s far-sighted commitment to taking on the problem of climate change is especially noteworthy,” said EDF’s energy program manager, Dirk Forrister. “By starting the process of joining the industrialized countries in accepting a cap on its total greenhouse gas emissions, Kazakhstan has shown that countries with economies in transition also can participate in the international system for reducing greenhouse gas pollution. By capping total greenhouse gas emissions, Kazakhstan should benefit environmentally and economically through the use of emissions trading with industrialized countries in a cooperative approach to greenhouse gas reduction.”

This week, EDF outlined a proposal that would allow developing countries, like Argentina, that choose alternative measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to receive similar benefits from quantifiable emission reductions achieved under Clean Development Mechanism projects of the Kyoto Protocol. The terms of the Protocol, however, reserve the use of the market mechanisms of emissions trading and joint implementation for nations that agree to a cap on total emissions, as Kazakhstan envisions.