Climate Change Talks Grow in Importance

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and President Bush, talk in the market place in the north German town of Stralsund, in this July 13, 2006, file photo, as Bush stopped there to talk with his newest European ally before heading to the Group of Eight summit. Merkel arrives in Washington Sunday, April 29, 2007, and will meet with Bush Monday at the White House in an effort to bridge differences on major issues like global trade and climate change. (AP Photo/Peter Kneffel, Pool, File) (Peter Kneffel - AP)

The annual U.N. climate conferences _ this year's is in December in Bali, Indonesia _ have made no real progress toward turning such deeper cuts into treaty obligations once Kyoto expires.

In a discussion forum that's a sidebar to the conference, government delegates have been talking about narrower, innovative ways for fast-developing countries like China to contribute without committing to blanket, quantified reductions.

"They could commit to a certain share of renewables," that is, a higher proportion of wind, solar or other non-carbon power sources in their energy mix, said Hermann E. Ott of Germany's Wuppertal Institute, which has conducted in-depth studies of post-Kyoto paths.

"You could also think of efficiency standards for electrical appliances," Ott said, "or measures for certain sectors _ for the steel industry, for example."

That non-negotiating forum ends this year. If, as expected, no mandate emerges in Bali to negotiate binding post-Kyoto targets, the U.N. process risks running out of time, given that it will take years to produce a new agreement and win ratification worldwide.

That would open a post-2012 gap _ a world without carbon-reduction rules _ that could wreck the emerging, Europe-centered market in trading carbon allowances among industries. The allowances would become unnecessary and worthless.

Elliott Diringer, international strategist at Washington's private Pew Center on Climate Change, said at Bali "it may be time to think about bridging strategies," that is, extending Kyoto's limited quotas past 2012 while working on deeper cuts.

Ott agreed a "bridge" looks ever more likely. He doesn't want to sound pessimistic, he said, but "it is important to stress that time is of the essence."