Tag: Fossil of the Day

Cancun, Mexico – From Norway to New Zealand and Algeria to Australia, thirteen countries shared the “prize” of two Fossils of the Day for promoting carbon capture and storage in the Clean Development Mechanism, and trying to preserve the “hot air” of surplus Assigned Amount Units in future commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Fossils as presented read:

“The 2nd place Fossil is awarded to Ukraine, Russia, New Zealand, and Australia for blocking the discussion of solutions that would prevent surplus Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) from fatally weakening the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Let's be honest: the huge Kyoto surplus in Ukraine and Russia arose from a mistake in the estimate of projected business-as-usual scenarios and not due to the implementation of effective climate change mitigation policies.

If the issue of surplus AAUs is not adequately addressed, developed countries can continue on a business-as-usual pathway. CAN questions the continuation of international emissions trading as a mechanism after 2012 if the Kyoto surplus issue is not fully addressed. This was addressed in Australia’s own draft emissions trading scheme, so it is surprising that they are not working constructively to find a way to ensure that those who have deepened their emissions reductions can be rewarded for doing so in a way that does not compromise the environmental integrity of future commitments.”
“The 1st place Fossil is awarded to Saudi Arabia, Norway, Kuwait, Algeria, UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, & Jordan for continuing to block progress in the negotiations by proposing the inappropriate inclusion of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol.
This proposal was made in the CMP Plenary by Saudi Arabia and supported by a number of countries including Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. It reflects a similar proposal yesterday supported by Norway.
They claim that CCS is already a proven, viable technology – which it currently is not – whereas the other technologies included in the CDM can facilitate clean and green development for developing countries.”

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About CAN: The Climate Action Network is a worldwide network of roughly 500 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org

About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999  in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.