
Finally in a dramatic session the participating countries agreed on the ‘Bali Action Plan’. What do you expect when representatives from over 180 countries come to a conclusion? Would searching the least common denominator lead to a powerless settlement? Will single states block all reasonable steps pretending imbalanced economic consequences?
However, finally the US left their isolated position and US Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky took the floor again, said the US wanted a roadmap and wanted to be part of the roadmap.
“We are very committed to long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions,” and she said the US would work with other large emitters to halve global emissions by 2050. And then she said the US “will go forward and join the consensus,” which was followed by a thunderous ovation.
Two results are remarkable: the implemenation of a ‘Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention’ with the mission to collect the input from all parties and present the result at the fourteenth session of the conference of the Parties (Dec. 2008) and last but not least the conference accepted the stabilization scenarios developed by the Working Group III.
You may bring up that’s only a footnote, well it is, but it is written down, it is agreed and is states that an emission reduction of 50 up to 85% is indispensable to stabilize global mean temperature at 2 - 2.4°C above pre-industrial levels.
More:
AR4: Technical Summary of Working Group III / Mitigation of Climate Change
AR4: Chapter 13: Policies, instruments, and co-operative arrangements
Videos: germanwatch@youtube