Although last week’s climate change conference in Hawaii concluded without set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, several delegates noted a change in the stance of the U.S, which has firmly rejected mandatory emissions targets thus far.
Delegates, like France’s climate change ambassador, Brice LaLonde, said the U.S. demonstrated a flexibility and willingness to discuss differences of opinion.
"We’re happy the position of the United States is changing," LaLonde said, adding that France continues to hope the U.S. will join other developed nations in agreeing to mandatory emissions targets.
"Of course, we want more. We hope in the next weeks after these discussions that we’ll be able to deliver more," LaLonde said. "But it’s a good start."
France was one of 16 nations participating in the closed-door talks, held at University of Hawaii. The countries in attendance account for roughly 80% of the man-made global emissions of greenhouse gases. They include: U.S., Britain, France, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and South Africa.
According to Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Commission’s head of climate change negotiations, conference delegates did not discuss the details of a European Union proposal for industrialized nations to cut emissions by 25 to 40%.
That proposal was especially contentious at the climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, last month. The U.S. refused to allow the target range to be included in the declaration published by the conference, which aimed to outline a two-year process through which a successor treaty can be negotiated to continue where the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that has not signed the Kyoto Protocol.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said last week the new mood at the US-sponsored talks was due to increased pressure at the Bali meeting.
Britain’s environment minister, Phil Woolas, agreed. "Bali has put the spotlight on you… There’s no country that wants to be the party pooper," he said during a break in the Hawaii talks.
"There’s a realization that we have to get an agreement; otherwise we’re all going to drown," Woolas added.
James Connaughton, the U.S. negotiator and head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said this round of meetings was able to address specifics that did not receive attention at Bali, which focused on drafting an over-arching roadmap for future international negotiations.
"We’re now getting into some very specific areas on some issues that are quite sensitive and we are working hard to more clearly understand the different perspectives of different delegations and look for common ground," Connaughton said. "And that is the spirit of this meeting."
Topics discussed in Hawaii included mitigating deforestation and energy-efficient technologies and ways rich countries could help developing countries address climate change.
According to reports there were very few demonstrators in Hawaii, only about a dozen on Wednesday, protesting what they said is an insufficient commitment from the Bush administration to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Others drew blue chalk lines along Honolulu city streets to show where high tide would be after decades of global warming and rising sea levels.
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