Dealing with climate change without Durban

Will there be a binding agreement signed in Durban to replace the Kyoto Protocol? The answer is “no” according to the Chilean environment minister.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Kyoto Protocol expires next year, the year when the big emitters of greenhouse gases will hold elections to choose their leaders.

The past two climate change meetings in Mexico and Copenhagen saw strong commitment from the host countries to push forward agenda that will help in the eventual reduction of greenhouse gases.

“We don’t see the same engagement from South Africa as we saw in Mexico in preparing for a binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol needed before you arrive at the conference,” Chile Environment Minister Maria Ignacia Benitez told The Korea Herald.

Instead, Benitez and government figures of many other countries are injecting a breath of fresh air into the climate change talks through the Cartagena Dialogue, which includes countries from almost every negotiating group.

“We know the problem,” she said, referring to the United States and China, the two top emitters of carbon dioxide. 

“We are aware that we need a commitment from all countries so that is why (Chile) pledged according to the Copenhagen Pledge a reduction or deviation from the baseline and we will want to see other developing countries engage in the some way. Maybe not as strong as developed countries committed in Kyoto, but this is a global problem that needs a global solution,” she said.

Chile’s main environmental challenges come from deforestation and resulting soil erosion, and the pollution of its air, water, and land.

Air pollution from industry, transportation and water pollution are especially elevated in urban centers, where the population has doubled in the last 30 years.

“Chile has implemented policies on energy efficiency, renewable energies and we are working to comply and reduce 20 percent of our CO2 emissions by 2020,” Benitez said. “It’s an ambitious goal but we are working on it.”

Benitez was in Seoul to learn about the technologies available in Korea in monitoring and enforcing air quality guide principles, and to get a first hand account on Korea’s green growth policy with the aim of applying those and local technologies in Chile.

As minister of the environment, Benitez saw potential in Korea’s Clean SYS program which remotely monitors emissions from fixed sources.

“In Chile, the government implemented emissions standards for power plants so this kind of technology will be suitable for the enforcement of those standards,” she said.

“We saw examples for remote control, automatic control, water and waste management so there are many experiences for us to study on how to apply them in Chile.”

Almost 45 percent of the Chilean economy is powered by renewable energy, mostly produced from hydroelectric dams. Chile is currently building its first geothermal power plant to be operational in three years and has seen minor developments in costly solar technology.

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)