BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/11/2006

Greenpeace warns against adding Belarus to Kyoto

Greenpeace's Steve Sawyer addresses a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, during the UN Conference on Climatic Changes on Nov. 6. 2006.

NAIROBI, Kenya - A new proposal to add Belarus to the Kyoto protocol at international climate change talks could send 50 million tonnes of "hot air" per year into the atmosphere, environmental groups warned on Friday.

The groups said that Belarus, like Russia was hoping to take advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union to earn Kyoto "credits" from other countries.

"They should not be allowed to hold this process hostage," said Steve Sawyer, a spokesperson from Greenpeace International.

The emissions of the the former Soviet countries dropped substantially in 1990 because of a collapse in their economies. Since the Kyoto protocol sets up a trading system that allows countries to benefit financially when they are below their 1990 levels, it allows the former Soviet countries to sell credits and increase their current greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

"So basically, that's why we call it hot air, because it doesn't represent any action or any actual emissions reductions, and it could be used to dilute the emissions reduction efforts of the other parties and of the other mechanisms," said Sawyer, on the final day of talks at the annual United Nations climate change conference.

Meantime, a member of the Canadian youth coalition attending the conference had the chance to address all delegates on the floor during a segment reserved for young delegations from across the world.

Nathalie Arsenault, 24, said that she would have liked to send a message to the Canadian government to move faster to address climate change. But the youth delegations agreed to stick to general remarks about global warming in their address.

"It was really something to show how the youth are here. We're present, (and) we're following what's going on," said Arsenault, 24, who is in the second year of a Masters program in International Relations at the Universite de Montreal, following her speech. "We don't want to just be considered as observers or people who are learning. We are really actively participating. we just need to be officially recognized as partners-as a really useful resource as well."

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has been butting heads and trading accusations all week with Canadian environmental groups. While she hasn't been able to meet with those groups, Ambrose has met twice with the two dozen young Canadians who financed their own trip to Kenya for the climate change conference.

Youth delegates have generally said the meetings were positive, but Arsenault was concerned that the minister might just be meeting with the young Canadians to boost the government's image.

"We can definitely feel used," she said. "Most of the time we're having a meeting with the minister of environment, we can assume it's for media purposes, and not for our direct interests. We feel that of course, and we realize that. But we try to make the best of what we have, with the resources we have, and try to get our points across as much as possible."

Source:

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=f158927f-443f-472d-8523-8e8965367fe8&k=90373

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