Australia & NZ delay decision on signing Kyoto 2Friday 11 May 2012 Australia and New Zealand have missed a deadline to set post-2012 emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, with both governments saying they will decide whether to continue to be legally bound to cut emissions of seven greenhouse gases later this year according to a recent Reuters report.Countries intending to sign up to a second round of targets under the 1997 treaty were scheduled to notify the U.N. by Tuesday last week. But Australia and New Zealand, both of which plan to launch emissions trading schemes and have been tipped to take on fresh legal targets from 2013, failed to meet that deadline. The EU and several other nations have already indicated they will set a post-2012 legally-binding target, but Canada, Russia and Japan, three big emitters with current Kyoto goals, have said they will not. Australia said it will make a decision only after U.N. parties agree on how long the second Kyoto period would last and how many surplus Kyoto permits can be transferred from the first phase. "We look forward to a clearer picture emerging from the outcomes of (U.N. climate talks) leading up to Doha," New Zealand said in a document published on the U.N. website, referring to the next high-level climate summit to start in November. New Zealand said it needs "full clarity" on the rules and how these relate to the emission reduction measures it is ready to do domestically. U.N. climate negotiators are meeting in Bonn, Germany on 14-25 May to resume talks on issues including the length and stringency of Kyoto 2 targets and the accounting of emissions from forestry. Source: Reuters |
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