The UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen may not achieve the desired results, according to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso who spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday.

"The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment," said President Barroso, noting there were only 80 days until Copenhagen. "It risks being an acrimonious collapse, delaying action against climate change perhaps for years. And the world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome."

The pessimistic outlook comes as airlines renew their pledge to go beyond current government targets for cutting emissions by 2050 during the UN Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change Forum being held today in New York. The forum, taking place in the run-up to December’s UNFCCC meeting, saw International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Giovanni Bisignani urge world leaders to retain a global sectoral approach to reducing emissions under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Meanwhile, British Airways CEO Willie Walsh, representing IATA, at today’s forum, will unveil the industry’s goal to cut emissions by 50% versus 2005 levels in an attempt to head off emissions taxes that Walsh warned earlier this year would add about $4.8 billion to industry costs. IATA proposals call for airlines to be exempt from EU emissions trading schemes set to be imposed in 2012.

His remarks are expected to counter critics who charge airlines with dragging their heels, pointing o the industry’s impressive record of reducing emissions and costs over the last few decades. He also renewed the industry’s pledge, part of a manifesto drawn up under the IATA auspices, to make all industry growth carbon neutral by 2020 and to cut CO2 emissions by 1.5% over the next decade. IATA plans to submit plan for joining a global carbon trading scheme to the UN by 2010.

"International aviation emissions were not included in the Kyoto protocol 12 years ago,” said Walsh. “Now we have a chance to rectify that omission, and we must seize it. Our proposals represent the most environmentally effective and practical means of reducing aviation's carbon impact. They are the best option for the planet and we urge the UN to adopt them."

“Climate change is a global problem,” Giovanni Bisignani will say during the summit. “Aviation is a global industry. And we need a global approach for this industrial sector if we are to deal with climate change effectively. Mechanisms designed for ground-based polluters will not work effectively for aviation which can emit CO2 across borders and over the high seas even on a single flight. And already uncoordinated national and regional schemes are creating a patchwork of punitive taxes that fill government coffers, but do little or nothing to effectively manage aviation’s emissions.”

“The Kyoto Protocol directed states to address aviation through ICAO,” he continued. “Its global standards and cooperation with industry have made air transport the safest form of travel. A global sectoral approach for aviation can leverage this same leadership to deliver results for aviation and the environment. Our targets are tough. Air transport is the first industry to commit to carbon-neutral growth at the global level. And we have done it with an aggressive timeline of 2020. Our four-pillar strategy of technology investment, efficient infrastructure, effective operations and positive economic measures will make our vision a reality and is already showing results. Aviation’s emissions are expected to fall 7% in 2009 - 5% as a result of the recession and 2% directly related to the strategy. IATA’s ‘Green Teams’ have saved 34 million tons of CO2 through operational efficiencies since 2005; our work on improving infrastructure, including shortening air routes, has saved a similar amount of CO2 since 2004. But our success depends on governments playing their part. They must implement more effective air traffic management – the introduction of NextGen air traffic management in the USA and the Single European Sky in Europe have the potential to save 41 million tons of CO2 annually. Governments must also create the legal and fiscal framework to support the development of sustainable biofuels for aviation.”

Bisignani’s paper also outlined guiding principles to ensure that the global sectoral approach results in emissions reductions, retains funds for investment in environmental initiatives for aviation, preserves a level playing field, provides access to global carbon markets and ensures that airlines cover the environmental cost of their emissions.

EC President Barroso noted at the Council meeting yesterday that the European Union fully backs the UN process, and that "…now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. This is what Europe has done, to be frank, and we will be pushing others to do the same."

“Climate change is no longer the reserved province of the environmental community,” he said. “It is an economic issue. It is a development issue. It is a health issue, a migration issue, an agriculture issue, a fisheries issue, an energy and transport issue. Because climate change is going to affect all these areas of our lives, and we are going to have to adapt. Indeed just recently I have announced that during the next five year term of the European Commission, we will assess how all our European policies must adapt to the realities of climate change. I also intend to create a Commissioner for Climate Action. But climate is also of course a foreign policy and security issue as well. Climate change is likely to trigger and exacerbate. It risks undermining our efforts to bring development to the poor parts of the world. And we will see potentially dangerous disputes: about water, about maritime resources, about population migration.

Barroso discussed the costs of climate change. “Tackling climate change will be expensive,” he said. “However, climate change expert, Nick Stern, tells us that failing to act will cost much more: at least 5% of the world's GDP every year. But it's about more than minimizing the pain, it's about surfing the next wave of economic development. Take Europe's climate and energy package, for example, which we agreed in 2008: cutting emissions by at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 and doubling the share of renewable energy to 20% within the same time-frame. We think this will generate some €90 billion ($130 billion) of additional investment in renewables, and some 700,000 new jobs in this sector, as well as reducing our oil and gas import bill by around €45 billion ($70 billion) a year by 2020.”

Despite compelling arguments for climate change action, he said, Copenhagen will be far from easy because of the impending deadlock threatened. “Let me spell out what that means,” he told delegates. “This may not be a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, delaying action against climate change perhaps for years. And the world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.

Part of the answer lies in the process of the negotiations themselves,” he continued. “We fully back the UN process: no-one is trying to undermine or short circuit that. But now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. This is what Europe has done, to be frank, and we will be pushing others to do the same.

He indicated one of the largest problems will be in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that will result in success. “The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions, and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions,” he said. “If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, as in fact we are committed to doing, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts. Second, we must now explicitly recognize that all developed countries have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation action by developing countries.”

He noted, by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional €100 billion (approximately $150 billion) a year to tackle climate change, suggesting some will be financed by developing countries themselves, particularly the advanced emerging economies. However, the biggest share should come from the carbon market, “if we have the courage to set up a robust global scheme in the coming decade.”

Even so, he said, “some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from €22 to €50 billion euros ($30 to $70 billion) a year by 2020.

“Depending on the outcome of international burden sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%, i.e., up to €15 billion, or $22 billion, a year,” he said. “We will need to be ready, in other words, to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at short term ‘start up funding’ for developing countries in the next year or so. The counterpart of this grand bargain is that developing countries, especially the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what actions they are ready to take to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement. They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts. They understandably stress that the availability of finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali. But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.”