Plans in setting up new carbon markets to cut greenhouse gases were rejected by the developing nations during the Warsaw conference Tuesday.
Because of the developing nations' actions toward the new carbon markets proposal, the scheduled talks by environment ministers on Tuesday will not likely end in any agreement as of this time. The discussions on this issue have been parked until June next year.
Industrial countries are disappointed at this drawback since they are in favor of the new proposal to create carbon markets so that emissions reduction can be done in the most inexpensive means.
One of the EU Commission's spokespersons admitted that the talks have been very tough and he was disappointed that there was no development yet. However they are still hopeful and, "remain interested in a political discussion on the role of markets in the 2015 agreement here in Warsaw."
Developing countries on the other hand are not very excited to go for the new markets proposal since the currently enforced ones are ineffective. They claim that industrial countries such as the U.S, Japan and the European Union pursue the new carbon markets because it will allow them to outsource efforts in carbon reduction from abroad while maintaining their local emissions rate.
Their reason is based from the market that came about from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This market, called the Clean Development Mechanism, was devised for industrial companies and governments to make $315 billion worth of investments in carbon-reduction projects based in emerging countries to gain carbon reduction rating which could be offset from their original emissions reduction targets.
Thus, the less rich countries, which are more affected by adverse climate change effects, urge the developed nations to commit and be bounded to more ambitious goals in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions before they will allow the talks on new carbon markets to progress.
Meena Raman, member of the Third World Network based in Malaysia told Reuters, "given the grave lack of ambition from developed countries to reduce emissions," this stand of the developed nations is good news. She added, "We need to review the failures of existing carbon markets to assess if they have any role to play in equitable and ambitious mitigation."
