ICCP Urges COP6 Ministers to Focus on Completing Mechanisms.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ --

International Climate Change Partnership today urged Ministers at the COP6 climate negotiations to send a strong message to the world community that it is serious in completing the flexible market mechanisms that are the key for implementing effective action on greenhouse gas emission reductions.

"When it comes to the debate on global warming it is important for negotiators to signal to business and industry that the environmental cold war is over," said ICCP Executive Director Kevin Fay. "Much of the major private sector business and industry community long ago signaled its recognition that global climate change presents a serious environmental and economic challenge to the world's population as well as a willingness to work towards solutions."

In 1997, negotiators agreed to the Kyoto Protocol, which includes binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.2%. The key to the agreement was the decision to use flexible market-based mechanisms to achieve these reductions. At this COP6 meeting in The Hague, however, diplomats are actually negotiating the very rules to be used to achieve these reductions. Despite the interest of many in the media and the environmental community to use a simplistic pass-fail test to determine success, the issues are far more complex.

Several key points about the COP6 meeting should be considered:

1. It is not about science -- negotiators are not debating whether

climate change is a valid scientific concern. This issue was put to