The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said the average global surface temperature will increase by up to 5.8 degrees Celsius over 1990 levels by 2100.  Greenpeace senior official Steve Sawyer warns that these higher temperatures could make most coastal cities uninhabitable, and that storms, droughts and floods could become more extreme.

Delegates from 185 countries are attending the 10-day annual U.N. climate conference, which is expected to be the last major meeting before the Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change comes into force early next year, despite U.S. objections to its provisions that bind only developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions (Sugita Katyal, Reuters, Oct. 27).

Although the developing world produces six times less pollution per resident than the industrialized world, their emissions are increasing 3.5 percent each year, compared with 1 percent in rich countries, the IPCC said, adding that developing countries will likely account for most pollution by 2020. 

Representatives from developing countries said today that delegates are not addressing several key issues on global warming, including the rampant burning of the Brazilian rain forests.  

"Tropical deforestation is a significant part of climate change and should be addressed more specifically by the international community and by the Kyoto Protocol process," said Paulo Moutinho, coordinator of the Amazon Institute of Environmental Research.  "The Amazon region has a tremendous potential for economic development that is based on sustainable uses of standing forests, agricultural intensification and forest restoration on lands already deforested."

Representatives from low-lying Pacific Islands criticized the conference for not including them in the talks.  "The whole climate change convention is really about us," said Fiu Mata'ese Ellsara-Laul, executive director of Samoa's O le Slostomaga Society.  "At the end of the day, we are the ones that are the most affected."

Vasiti Mautia, legal officer for the Pacific Heritage Foundation, said many of the delegates were cut off from reality and not raising the issues of climate change strongly enough because their countries are not yet directly affected.  She said many communities in Papua New Guinea were already facing problems, such as rising sea levels that spoil crop production (Agence France-Presse/Sify News, Oct. 28).

A record 4,900 delegates are participating in the conference.  The number of attendees is likely to increase when the high-level ministerial segment begins Wednesday (Economic Times, Oct. 27).

Environmental activists said on October 21 they would hold a shadow conference to a high-powered UN meet in New Delhi on climate change, saying progress at the talks would likely be blocked by powerful industry groups.

Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace said progress on climate change has eluded global leaders despite years of negotiations, because of powerful interest groups.

"Why is it (progress) not happening? What we are up against is the largest vested interest group in the world, which is the fossil fuel industry," he said.

Sawyer accused industry of pouring money into building a case that climate changes were not conclusively linked to emissions.

He said because of this Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Third World Network and other environmental and social groups would hold a "Climate Justice Forum" to highlight the real issues affecting communities.

The activist groups also criticised the conference for not including representatives of poor communities that are most affected by climate change.

"It is unquestionably the poor who will be the most affected, particularly the poor in developing countries. And they are not represented in the conference," said Kate Hampton, coordinator of the climate change campaign for Friends of the Earth International.

The conference in New Delhi, spread over two weeks, has drawn delegates from 185 nations including senior ministers who will hold talks on global warming and ways to check its impact and to cut down emissions.

The focus will be on preparations to be made before the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 comes into effect from next year. The agreement has been rejected by US President George W. Bush.

The activists said the developed world has not done enough to target the world's pollution, although they produce most of it.

"The biggest injustice of climate change is that the hardest hit communities are the least responsible for creating the problem," the Climate Justice Forum said in a statement.

The environmental groups also said the Kyoto Protocol alone would not be enough to check the problems of climate changes.

"The most affected by these climate changes would be people like farmers, fishermen and indigenous people, who could not only stand to lose their livelihood, but also be uprooted from their ancestral lands," said Amit Srivastava, coordinator of the Climate Justice initiative.

Power, polluter

US electricity sector makes twice as much greenhouse gas as Europe: report Paris
The US electricity sector emits nearly twice as much carbon dioxide - the main gas behind global warming - as European energy makers, consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a study on October 21.

US plants pump out an average of 720 kilograms (1,600 pounds) of carbon dioxide per megawatt/hour of electricity production, compared to 353 kilograms for European companies, said the study published in the French industry newsletter Enerpresse.

The United States only produces 50 per cent more electricity than Europe, however, it noted.

The study drew its data from 23 energy companies in the European Union and one Slovenian and one Norwegian utility that together, create three-quarters of European electricity production.

They were compared with monitoring of the 100 leading companies in the United States, where utility management is spread among a greater number of firms than in Europe.

PricewaterhouseCoopers also compared the 10 biggest electricity producers on each side of the Atlantic and found that European companies together put out a third more electricity than their US counterparts - but a third less carbon dioxide.

Part of the disparity was the result of a greater dependence on nuclear plants to produce electricity in Europe - 33 per cent of such production, compared to 20 percent in the United States.

But it also found that fossil fuel-burning plants in Europe put out 10 to 25 per cent more energy than similar US installations.

The study was released just ahead of a meeting in India on Wednesday of the signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, the UN pact aimed at cutting global warming.

The agreement has been spurned by the United States, which is the world's biggest energy consumer and the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

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