Conference chairman Jan Pronk decided not to close out the meeting, but instead suspended it, saying it would resume early next year. Looking back, I think it's better to say perhaps we did not yet succeed. Some lobbyists from environmental groups broke into tears as they watched Pronk announce the failure. The key issue blocking agreement was whether and to what extent countries should be allowed to count the carbon dioxide absorbed by forests and farmlands toward their emissions reduction targets. Greenhouse gas emissions mostly come from burning fossil fuels for factories, power plants and cars.
Carbon dioxide is a major component of the emissions.
Under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the developed world committed to collectively reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. The accord included a vague provision for farmland and forests. But the treaty did not define whether that meant credit for land that has already been absorbing carbon for decades or whether such credits would be restricted to environment-friendly changes in land management, and to what extent. The United States says it signed onto the Kyoto agreement assuming that existing forests and agricultural lands would count, but opponents say that was not the intention of the Kyoto accord and would award credit for doing nothing to actually reduce emissions. Some European Union countries believed the Americans were asking for credit for too high a proportion, while others didn't think the lands should count at all.