BONN - Environment ministers meeting in Germany reached a last-minute compromise deal last night to salvage the Kyoto accord on cutting the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
"It's a brilliant day for the environment. It's a huge leap to have achieved a result on this very complex international negotiation," British Environment Minister Michael Meacher said. "It's a huge relief."
As the deal was struck, Applause rang out in the room where ministers had bargained for hours.
Japan, Canada, Russia and Australia had finally backed a compromise accord been pushed by the European Union to avert a potentially disastrous failure after the collapse of a summit at The Hague in November and withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto negotiations this year.
There was a chance that some of the 185 countries present at the United Nations talks in Bonn might yet reject the plan at an overnight debating session but what was vital was that the key industrial powers had settled their differences.
A spokesman for the European Union's lead negotiator, Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze, said Japan had secured a special exemption to overcome its hesitations about mechanisms for legally enforcing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
However, other officials said it was not quite clear what precise deal had been struck for Japan.
One said he believed that all that had happened was that disagreements over the wording on compliance mechanisms would be referred to lower level talks among civil servants in Bonn later this week.
Tokyo's consent has been crucial to bringing the accord into force since United States President George W. Bush rejected the 1997 pact in March, saying its mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would hurt the economy of the world's biggest polluter.
The deal irons out remaining differences on technical issues necessary to turn the protocol into a workable treaty that could be brought into force next year.
Japan had demanded a softer approach on compliance mechanisms than the European Union.
Japan, Canada, Russia and others had already won concessions from the EU on counting carbon-absorbing forests towards their emission reduction targets.
That will mean the global cut in emissions is only about a third of the original goal of reducing greenhouse gas production by the 30-odd most industrial nations to an average of 5.2 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2012.
- REUTERS
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
United Nations Environment Program
World Meteorological Organisation
Framework Convention on Climate Change
Executive summary: Climate change impacts on NZ
IPCC Summary: Climate Change 2001