The UK has proposed a new twin-track climate deal this month to end the stalemate which has affected international talks on global warming since the failed Copenhagen climate conference last December. In a policy u-turn, the Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the Government would agree to an extension of the current international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol – something developing countries have insisted on but which has so far been rejected by the UK and the European Union.
Mr Miliband said the UK would accept a renewed Kyoto alongside the entirely new, legally binding global deal it has been pursuing. In effect there could be two separate international climate treaties, covering emissions cuts by different countries. The move seems likely to put pressure on China, one of the countries which blocked agreement at Copenhagen and now one of the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter, to join a comprehensive new climate arrangement covering the whole world.
Despite China’s stubbornness at the talks in Denmark, it was UK and EU insistence on abandoning the 1997 Kyoto Treaty which was the immediate cause of the talks’ breakdown. In the end a limited agreement, the “Copenhagen Accord” was put together during the final day, but it fell short of the legally binding global warming treaty which has been the original objective.
In announcing that the UK would accept a renewal of Kyoto, Mr Miliband was in effect starting the climate talks all over again. He commented, “We are interested in trying to break the deadlock and find ways through some of the issues raised in Copenhagen. We do not want to let a technical argument about whether we have one treaty or two derail the process. We are determined to show flexibility as long as there is no undermining of environmental principles.”
