Montreal

Delegates from across the world returned home optimistic last weekend after climate-change talks in Montreal, Canada, despite the United States' continuing refusal to commit itself to reducing greenhouse gases.

A key outcome is an agreement by parties to the Kyoto Protocol to discuss deeper commitments to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as finding creative ways to engage developing countries. Some observers believe that the stage has now been set for long-term cooperation between developing and industrial nations within the treaty.

For instance, Papua New Guinea and several other countries said they want to hold discussions on how to create financial incentives to avoid deforestation in their countries. In addition, China has declared its intent to more than double its use of renewable energy, to 15% of its electrical demand, by 2020. Some at the meeting believe this might lead to non-binding targets within the next commitment period of the Kyoto treaty. China could potentially receive carbon credits if it exceeds that goal.

“These are the kind of innovative things that we now have a negotiating space for countries to put on the table,” says Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC.

China has targeted renewable energy as an alternative to its conventional power stations. Credit: M. HENLEY/IMPACT

More good news came as talks on the final day, 9 December, lasted into early Saturday morning. Just after midnight, the US delegation finally agreed to consider a dialogue on future strategies. The wording of the text is vague, but the agreement to continue at all was a “tactical victory”, says Maria Socorro Manguiat, a legal officer at the World Conservation Union.

The United States is not a party to the Kyoto protocol and so is under no obligation to discuss binding targets for emissions cuts. But a proposal made in the first week of talks by the conference president, Canada's environment minister Stéphane Dion, opened up the floor for future discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which the United States is a party.

The Montreal talks ran on parallel tracks: one for countries that are parties to the convention, and one for countries that have ratified the Kyoto protocol. One of the problems with the protocol — particularly for countries such as Australia and the United States that have not ratified it — is that it mandates binding limits on greenhouse-gas emissions only for industrialized, not developing, nations.

By the end of the talks, parties to the Kyoto treaty had agreed to take part in negotiations towards deeper emissions cuts and other options for stabilizing emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto commitment period ends. They did not agree to a deadline for setting post-2012 commitments, but many observers think there is now a forum in which to engage developing countries such as China, India and Brazil in discussing how to reduce emissions while advancing economic development.

Throughout the conference, the United States insisted that one way forward was through bilateral and multilateral partnerships. One such initiative is the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which it set up in the summer with Australia and four other countries. This is set to kick off with a ministerial meeting in January. “The partnership will help speed the development of cleaner, more efficient energy systems in some of the world's fastest-growing economies,” said Paula Dobriansky, head of the US delegation.

But critics say this is merely a political tool. “At this stage the partnership is simply a skeleton,” says Christine Milne, vice-president of the World Conservation Union. The agreement currently has no emissions targets, timelines or funding. “The proof of the pudding will be at the ministerial meeting in Sydney in January,” she says.