Solving the problem of climate change requires a transformation in the thinking of developed countries, Tufts professors and outside experts said Monday.
About 25 graduate students listened to panelists Mukul Sanwal from the United Nations Climate Convention Secretariat, Youba Sokono from the Observatory for the Sahel and Sahara, Kiliparti Ramakrishna from the Woods Hole Research Center, and Fletcher School Professor William Moomaw speak in a classroom in Cabot Hall.
The discussion, "The Future of Climate Negotiations: Kyoto and Beyond," focused on the first meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol, scheduled for Nov. 28. Fletcher School Professor Adil Najam moderated.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty on climate change. It asks signatories to reduce emissions and provides for emissions trading for signatories that fall under or above the protocol's targets.
It was negotiated at the end of 1997 and came into force at the beginning of 2005, after its ratification by Russia at the end of 2004. The United States and Australia have not ratified the protocol.
Ramakrishna was pessimistic about the protocol's future. He said the years between the negotiations and the ratifications did not produce any environmental benefits.
When the protocol's binding rules expire in 2012, Ramakrishna said, the signatories will have only reduced their emissions by one percent. The non-signatories, though, will have increased their emissions to more than compensate for the protocol's benefits.
Ramakrishna said British scientists found that a global increase of more than two percent could be "catastrophic" for climate change. Ramakrishna recommended a reduction of 15 to 20 percent.
"The protocol - politically - was a great achievement, but in reality, it is not solving the climate problem anywhere," Sokono said during the evening's second presentation.
Sokono gave three ways to get efforts to fight climate change off the ground: the United States should become actively involved in the efforts, the rest of the world needs to become engaged, and the groups working on climate change need to develop common goals. Only global movements can force change, he said.
Moomaw said countries can address climate change in three phases: they can mitigate the problem, adapt to the problem once it has started, or wait to clean up the problem.
Hurricane Katrina fit the third phase, he said, since the United States did not address the problem of climate change or adapt to the problem by making better dikes.
The Kyoto Protocol is a test of the mitigation phase, Moomaw said. "I see the first commitment period as an experiment period," he said. Moomaw said companies in non-signatory countries that have reduced their emissions made him optimistic about the prospects for change.
Sanwal was less optimistic. He said countries may agree to the protocol without changing their actions. "They can interpret it in very strict terms, or they can interpret it in very liberal terms," he said.
To affect real change, Sanwal said, a transformation is necessary. "What we are struggling with at the moment is how to get that done," he said.
During the program's question and answer session, Najam expanded on Moomaw's idea of adaptation. He said whether or not countries address climate issue ahead of time, they will have to adapt to its effects.
Solving the climate change problem is expensive, Najam said, and most of the cost falls on countries that contribute most to the problem. These countries have to rearrange their spending priorities, Najam said.
To lessen or adapt to the effects of climate change, developed countries may have to rely on new technology, Moomaw said. He recommended diversifying energy sources to include solar and wind power.
Sokono agreed. The problem of climate change is not one of technology, he said, but political. Developed countries' leaders have yet to demand the use of better energy technologies, he said.
Najam closed the discussion - organized by the Fletcher School's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy - by telling the participants the transformation was up to them. "On that happy note, I give the future of the world in your hands," he said.
