WWF rates 5 nations and the EU on combating climate change

The Kyoto Climate Summit Scorecard

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The 3rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3), held in Kyoto, Japan, offers an historic opportunity to take the necessary first steps to combat climate change, a growing threat to the environment and national economies.

The evidence is clear: Climate change is not a distant, future threat but is already affecting habitat, wildlife, human health and the economy around the globe. Nevertheless, many governments have been reluctant to tackle this problem.

WWF analyzes have demonstrated that reducing emissions of carbon dioxide - the major greenhouse gas - can be achieved without harming economic growth and prosperity. On the contrary, delaying action will only increase abatement costs at a later stage.

Peer-reviewed studies carried out by independent institutions, on behalf of WWF, show that reductions in carbon dioxide (based on 1990 figures) could be achieved in the US, Japan and the European Union (EU) as early as 2005 by using proven policies and measures and often at net economic benefits. The US study, undertaken by the Tellus Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, shows that the US could reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 10% in 2005 and 22% in 2010 while gaining US $136 billion.

The arguments should thus be about benefit sharing, not burden sharing.

For the Kyoto Climate Summit, WWF has created an International Climate Change Scorecard to show how some of the major players in the Climate Change negotiations rate on the most crucial issues for the summit.

Proposed targets for carbon dioxide emissions reductions are important but do not provide the full story. Therefore, WWF also has rated nations on two of the major "loopholes" that, under the headline of "flexibility," have found their way into the Climate Change negotiations. These and other loopholes threaten to undermine the climate convention since their adoption could result in aggregate increases in greenhouse gas emissions, rather than the needed reductions.

The Kyoto conference is the time and place to agree on legally binding emission reductions if actions are to be effective in the early years of the next century. This can only be done by adopting substantial reduction commitments for industrialized countries for 2005 and 2010 while at the same time not allowing a wide range of so-called flexibility mechanisms.


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