Blair Urges G8 Pact on 2050 Emissions Halving Goal
JAPAN: June 30, 2008
TOKYO - Former British prime minister Tony Blair urged the Group of Eight
rich nations on Friday to agree to a global goal of halving greenhouse gas
emissions by 2050, despite signs top carbon emitter the United States would
not back the target.
"What we should do this year is to establish the workplan necessary so that
we can get an interim target next year that is realistic," Blair told a news
conference.
"For this year's Japan G8, the essential thing is -- get the global 2050
target agreed, and then get the elements that will go into the package for
next year."
Blair, who is in Tokyo to present a report by the non-profit Climate Group,
said an agreement at the G8 summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan, from July
7-9 would be key to kick-starting discussions for an interim emissions
reduction target next year.
Pressure is mounting from environmentalists for the G8 to come up with
medium-term targets, even before 2050.
But a wide gulf exists within the group and between richer and poorer
nations over how to share the burden of fighting climate change, which many
experts link to droughts and changing weather patterns, and expect to bring
rising sea levels.
Japan has yet to persuade the United States to agree to the mid-century
goal, a Japanese government source said on Thursday, reigniting doubts as to
how far the G8 will be able to go beyond its agreement last year to
"seriously consider" the goal.
Tokyo wants the G8 meeting and an expanded meeting with eight other major
economies including China to build momentum for UN-led talks on a climate
framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The Kyoto pact's first phase obliges many industrialised nations to curb
emissions between 2008-12, and the aim for the next stage is to bind all
nations to reductions.
Part of the solution to cutting future emissions would be a renaissance in
nuclear power, Blair said, although he noted that the world's long aversion
to nuclear energy meant technology was not readily available.
"There is going to be a renaissance in nuclear power, partly to do for
reasons with climate change, and partly to do for reasons with energy
security," he told Reuters.
"But here's the problem -- because of the way we've turned away nuclear
energy in the past couple of decades, we've got a situation where we don't
have the expertise frankly to develop nuclear power in the way that it needs
to and at the speed we need to." (Reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Ben
Tan)
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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