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Op-eds and articles by the Executive Secretary |
| Climate Change: The Perils of a Unilateral Path World leaders will meet next week in New York to address the issue of climate change, upon invitation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. The one-day meeting (22 September) is crucial in that it is only three months away from the Copenhagen conference, which will seek a global agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Why are the multilateral negotiations on global warming fundamental for the region? What is at stake for Latin America and the Caribbean? I believe it is not exaggerated to say that we are before a vital juncture: Or we deploy our best will and creativity to reach a balanced and fair multilateral agreement in Copenhagen or we open the way for unilateral measures that will hamper our region's future growth. Or we follow a negotiated path based on shared values, with agreed upon deadlines and proportional efforts - following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and according to each country's capabilities - or we embark on a route of indiscriminately applied national initiatives that do not distinguish levels of relative development and only obey the rules of the market. There is already strong evidence on how new "climatic-economic" norms tend to include unilateral regulations on trade based on the carbon footprint of traded goods and services. In June, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the "Clean Energy and Security Act", which aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 17% by 2020 in relation to 2005. To protect the U.S. economy, this bill - which must still pass the Senate- considers compensatory tariffs as of 2020 on carbon-intensive imported goods, such as steel, cement, paper and glass, from countries the United States esteems are not doing enough to reduce their emissions. In France, carbon labeling on products, their packaging, consumption or potential environmental impact will be mandatory as of 1 January 2011 as part of the Grenelle II law. In October 2008, England created a standard called "Publicly Available Standard" (PAS 2050) to calculate greenhouse gas emissions associated to the lifecycle of products and services and drafted a Code of Good Practices for the emission and reduction of GHG. These unilateral measures could mean that the efforts and responsibility of mitigating the effects of climate change shifts from north to south. And it would become a new barrier to the economic growth of developing countries. For now, in Latin America the issue of the carbon footprint of its exports is just emerging. However, the region must take these developments very seriously in its design of public policies and in its long-term economic planning. If addressed in a timely and comprehensive manner, climate change can become a window of opportunity to undertake the gradual decarbonization of the energy matrix, renew infrastructure, improve productive processes and eventually move towards a development path with less carbon content. These are the challenges before us. What is expected of Copenhagen is a renewed global agreement, with clear and binding commitments by industrialized countries, with the explicit intention of emerging countries, and financial mechanisms and technologies to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions between 20% and 40% by 2020 with respect to 1990 levels. This is why it is urgent to boost confidence among different groups of countries and reduce the frictions we have been experiencing until now in the context of multilateral negotiations on climate change. The meeting convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in New York is an excellent opportunity to do that. Alicia Bárcena, |