Climate change efforts need concensus, cooperation: Beckett

London (Platts)--1Nov2005

UK environment minister Margaret Beckett Tuesday called on nations to
cooperate in search of a response to the challenge of climate change, at the
opening of a one-day informal ministerial meeting in London. Speaking to the
press at the start of the meeting, Beckett said the challenge was to better
use technology to reduce the impacts of climate change and to satisfy the
demand for cleaner energy worldwide.

     The meeting, billed as an informal exchange of views in the run-up to the
United Nations' Conference and Meeting of parties to the Kyoto Protocol in
Montreal later this month, was meant to expand on the work of the UK-led G8
meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland earlier this year, and gathered ministers from
developing countries as well as the G8.

     "We need something on which the whole world will agree, and which will
cut emissions," Beckett, said, referring to the growing debate on building a
post-Kyoto system to combat climate change. She went on to explain that the
various bilateral agreements that have been reached--notably the UK's
agreement to develop carbon capture and storage technology with China--are all
working to the same end as Kyoto, namely the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions.

     Beckett stopped short of saying that developing nations such as China or
India were ready to take on binding limits to their emissions in the next
round of climate change action after 2012: "The purpose of this meeting is to
listen and to learn from each other; it's not about a successor to Kyoto." 

     The minister also defended Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance on climate
change, saying that he had not shifted in his view that climate change action
needed concensus. Despite reports emanating from New York this summer that
Blair was no longer in favor of specific reduction targets, Beckett said,
"What matters now is what comes after 2012. We need a new, legally-binding
arrangement."

---alessandro_vitelli@platts.com

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