Cows and sheep grazing in fields, joggers' shoes or even the kitchen fridge could all be targeted under a new U.N. pact meant to rein in global warming.
OSLO, Norway — Cows and sheep grazing in fields, joggers' shoes or even the kitchen fridge could all be targeted under a new U.N. pact meant to rein in global warming.
The Kyoto protocol comes into force Wednesday in a bid to brake a build-up of heat-trapping gases that many scientists fear will trigger more heat waves, droughts and floods and could raise global sea levels by almost 3 feet by 2100.
And tennis balls may be an infinitesimal part of the problem.
Kyoto focuses on cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, emitted by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars and widely blamed as the biggest contributor to nudging up world temperatures.
The 141-nation Kyoto pact, weakened by a U.S. pullout in 2001, will also seek to limit a cocktail of five less common gases found everywhere from cows' stomachs to aluminum smelters, from car tires to household refrigerators.
"There's been much less attention to these other gases even though some of them are very powerful in their greenhouse gas effect," said Bo Kjellen, a former Swedish climate negotiator now at the British Tyndall Centre environmental think-tank.
"A major problem has been that it's more difficult to calculate their effect on the climate," he said. "There will have to be much more focus on these gases in coming years."
One of the gases, sulfur hexafluoride, is estimated to be 23,900 times more powerful at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, according to the secretariat of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
BOUNCE
Hexafluoride is used to give bounce to some sports shoes, tennis balls or car tires.
The European Union has draft legislation to outlaw some of the gases, forcing industry to make upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Most countries are not doing enough to control these gases," said Mahi Sideridou of the Greenpeace environmental lobby in Brussels, saying that the EU plans were a lowest common denominator.
Outside the EU, many countries have no legislation on many of the gases, viewing them as harmless or the best available.
Under Kyoto, developed countries will have to cut their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
President George W. Bush withdrew in 2001, saying Kyoto was too costly and wrongly excluded developing countries from the first round of targets. Bush doubts whether scientists know enough about the climate to warrant Kyoto-style caps.
In 2001 carbon dioxide accounted for 83.6 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human sources, followed by methane at 8.7 percent and nitrous oxide at 6.1 percent, according to official U.S. figures.
The other gases -- sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) -- made up the remaining 1.6 percent.
Concentrations of some of the trace gases, albeit tiny, are rising. Methane concentrations have risen by about 150 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
Farmers worried about global warming may have to get used to phrases like "manure management" and "enteric fermentation" -- the latter referring to how methane is produced in the stomachs of livestock like cows and goats and expelled.
FERTILIZERS
Changes in diet or in fertilizer use can help cut livestock emissions. Methane is also released from sources which include rice farming, rotting vegetation and coal mines.
Kjellen said the non-carbon dioxide gases would become more important in coming years when backers of Kyoto seek to encourage developing countries, where energy use is less intensive and agriculture more important, to sign up from 2012.
"Some of the main problems relating to methane are linked to the developing countries -- rice fields in India, cattle and so on," he said. Some developed countries have big farming sectors.
Methane from livestock is the biggest source of greenhouse gases in New Zealand, where 49.2 percent came from agriculture in 2002, more than from energy.
The world is sharply divided about how to axe some of the non-carbon dioxide gases.
Some, including those used in refrigerants, were introduced as substitutes for gases that were banned after they were found to be destroying the ozone layer which helps shield the planet from damaging solar radiation.
The European Union, for instance, wants to phase out use of HFC 134a, the refrigerant universally used in car air conditioners. The United States, for instance, does not favor some of the HFC substitutes because they are flammable.
Source: REUTERS
