Isra-Mart srl:EU summit to use Kyoto extension as climate "bait", drafts show

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Brussels - A European Union summit later this month will use a conditional offer to extend the Kyoto Protocol on CO2 emissions after 2012 as bait to attract other states to accept emissions cuts, internal documents show.

The EU was sidelined by the United States and developing powers at world climate-change talks in Copenhagen last year. It is desperate to gain leverage over the next round of talks, due in December in the Mexican resort of Cancun, and sees the protocol as a key weapon.

The EU 'confirms the willingness to consider a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol,' but it will only do so 'provided the (EU's) conditions ... are met by our international partners,' reads a draft statement prepared for the summit on October 28.

That protocol, agreed in 1997, bound developed economies such as the EU to reduce emissions by specified amounts before 2012.

Developing states want developed ones to accept a further round of Kyoto targets beyond 2012.

The wording of the draft, which sets out the EU's negotiating position for Cancun, makes it clear that the bloc is willing to accept that demand.

But for the first time, it makes it equally clear that the EU will only be 'willing to consider' further Kyoto targets if the developing states themselves accept ambitious climate targets.

Diplomats say that is a bid to win leverage over states such as China, Brazil and India, who are not bound by Kyoto, but want developing states to stick to it.

However, it also threatens a rift with Japan, which has already said that the protocol should not be extended, and with Russia, which would stand to lose billions of euros in Kyoto credits if the protocol were to expire in 2012.

The EU has already promised to cut its own emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, regardless of the protocol's fate.

Any decision not to extend Kyoto would therefore have no impact on the bloc's own climate policy.