The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) has welcomed the landmark global agreement on climate change struck at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday. It warned, however, that its success may be jeopardised if world governments fail to agree firm targets for reducing emissions by the time of the next major gathering in 2009.
A last minute compromise from the US cleared the way for agreement to be reached between the more than 180 countries gathered in Bali over the last two weeks charged with launching negotiations on a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The new deal commits the US and China to global greenhouse goals for the first time, as well as a two-year process to negotiate further emissions cuts, to culminate in the adoption of a new agreement in Copenhagen in 2009.
Andy Atkins, the WEA's environment spokesperson and Policy Director at UK evangelical relief and development agency Tearfund, was among more than ten thousand participants at the conference.
Atkins disapproved western countries like Japan, Canada, the US and Australia for "playing hard ball" during negotiations, which slid into overtime on Friday and Saturday due to the US' opposition to Indian demands for greater leniency to be shown towards developing nations in the new deal.
While Atkins welcomed the new agreement as a sign of progress in tackling climate change on an international level, he criticised governments for rejecting a European Union proposal to bind industrialized countries to 25 - 40 per cent carbon emissions cuts by 2020.
"The stalling tactics of the Bush Administration and a few others snatched mediocrity from the jaws of resounding success," he said on Saturday.
"The good news is we have a process to negotiate further emissions cuts by 2020. Getting more than 180 countries to agree was no mean feat. But the fact that there is no agreement about exactly how far to cut emissions means the Bali roadmap is missing a vital signpost."
He added, "An ambitious, science-based target will have to be agreed by 2009 if the new agreement is not to be fatally flawed."
