The Minister of the Environment, Cristina Narbona, is confident that the United States will make commitments at the World Climate Summit held in Montreal (Canada) to control its greenhouse gas emissions from 2012, the year in which the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol must have met the objectives assigned to them by it.

Narbonne, who has travelled to Canada to join the negotiations of the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, said that it is necessary to ‘involve’ the countries that have not ratified the protocol, ‘and in particular the US, so that they commit in the post-2012 period’. date from which new objectives will be set.

He also stressed the need for countries such as China and India, to which the current Protocol does not assign specific emission control or reduction targets, as they are developing economies, to also acquire ‘from 2012 onwards, even if they are not quantifiable’.

‘The important thing now’, he explained, ‘is to give signals for the period that opens from 2012 because, otherwise, the commitments that many governments and many companies have made to date to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or control them would be called into question’.

In this regard, the Minister of the Environment recalled that the Kyoto Protocol should constitute a ‘first measure to reduce emissions’, since this text obliges the developed countries that have assumed it to reduce their emissions by 5.2% in the period 2008-2012 taking 1990 levels as a reference.

For this reason, the EU defends the adoption of measures from that year, to prevent the average temperature of the planet from rising by more than two degrees Celsius by 2050.

Spain’s objectives

To achieve this, the EU believes that greenhouse gas emissions from industrialised countries would have to fall by 15 to 30% by 2020. In addition, some EU countries defend that developed states reduce their emissions by between 60 and 80% by 2050, a proposal that the Spanish delegation assumes.

Narbona indicated that, in order to achieve appreciable levels of emission reductions, it is necessary, in addition to the commitment of the United States, that of countries such as China, India and those of Latin America.

To achieve this, the EU proposes that from 2012 onwards the distribution of targets should be carried out taking into account the per capita emissions of the different countries, as the Spanish minister highlighted the great differences that currently exist.

‘While in the US per capita emissions are 20 tonnes of CO2 per year, in Spain they are 8 tonnes and in India 1 tonne. If we want developing countries to be involved, we will have to take these differences into account,” he said.

She also supported the fact that the new assignments of objectives in the EU should also take this into account.

In this regard, he pointed out that the Government is studying the adoption of fiscal measures and a new electricity tariff model that encourages efficient consumption in order to adapt to the new emissions targets assigned to it.

By Alicia Rivera (El País).