December 3, 2008

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

UN official urges long view on green power plans

POZNAN, Poland

The global financial crisis already has delayed some green energy projects, stoking fears that a shortage of investment money will lead to cheap and dirty decisions on new power plants, the UN’s top climate official said.

Instead, investors should see the crisis as “an opportunity for green growth” as they replace up to 40 per cent of the world’s power generation over the next decade, said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The financial crisis will have an impact on climate change,” he said this week. As investment money dries up, oil prices are dropping, which could discourage clean energy investments. “You already are seeing around the world a number of wind energy projects being pushed back,” he said.

On Monday, 10,000 delegates from 186 countries and environmental activists begin a two-week conference on an agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The conference concludes with two days of talks among 150 government ministers, to be opened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Kyoto accord put limits on carbon emissions from many industrial countries and called on them to help poor countries adapt to the effects of human-induced global warming.

The negotiations over the next 12 months, leading to an agreement to be signed in Copenhagen, Denmark next year, “will affect the world that we leave behind us,” De Boer said.

Scientists warn of potentially catastrophic results unless emissions begin to fall within the next 10-15 years.

The U.S. refused to ratify the Kyoto agreement, saying it would be harmful to the economy and unfairly exempted rapidly developing countries like China and India from any obligations.

Delegates in Poznan expect the conference to be energized by the statements of President-elect Barack Obama, who has signalled a turnaround in U.S. policy and promised to take a leadership role on climate change.

De Boer welcomed Obama’s pledge last week to a conference of U.S. governors to launch an energy revolution as a way to create millions of new jobs and help revive the American economy.

“I’m very happy with what he has already committed to do,” De Boer said.

Associated Press

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