JAPAN: July 4, 2008
Climate change will be high on the agenda when Group of Eight (G8) leaders
meet in Hokkaido, northern Japan, for a July 7-9 summit and talks with heads
of other big economies, including China and India.
Below are some key facts about climate change negotiations.
KYOTO PROTOCOL
* Under the 1997 pact, industrialised countries agreed to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
* The United States came out against the pact in 2001. President George W.
Bush said it would be too expensive and wrongly omitted big developing
nations China and India from emissions curbs during its first phase, which
ends in 2012.
* Under the pact, 37 developed countries agreed to targets for 2008-12. They
range from an 8 percent cut for the European Union from 1990 levels to a 10
percent rise for Iceland.
FROM BALI TO COPENHAGEN
* Officials from nearly 200 countries agreed at climate talks in Bali,
Indonesia in December 2007 to start two years of negotiations to seal a
broader pact to fight global warming.
* The talks aim to conclude with the adoption of a new treaty in Copenhagen
in December 2009 that would bind all nations to emissions curbs from the
beginning of 2013, straight after Kyoto's initial phase ends.
* Agreement by 2009 would give governments time to ratify the pact and give
certainty to markets and investors wanting to switch to cleaner energy
technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels. Carbon markets need
certainty since the existing carbon emissions scheme under Kyoto runs out in
2012.
* The final Bali declaration, called the Bali roadmap, relegated a goal for
rich countries to cut emissions by 25-40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to
a footnote.
MAJOR ECONOMIES MEETING
* Washington wants the main forum for emissions cuts to be the Major
Economies Meeting group, which it set up last year.
* The MEM includes the G8 countries along with Australia, Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa.
* The group, which meets in Hokkaido on July 9, accounts for about 80
percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It remains divided over whether
to set a goal of halving global emissions by 2050, favoured by the European
Union, Japan and Canada, as part of the fight against global warming.
* Developing countries have said they would not sign up to such a goal at
the July 9 meeting unless Washington and other advanced countries set bold
interim targets to curb their emissions by 2020, while the United States
wants to make sure big emerging countries are on board in a new agreement
first.
* Negotiators from the Major Economies Meeting group who met in Seoul late
last month failed to agree on a draft statement mentioning numerical targets
for either a long-term global target to cut emissions or midterm goals for
developed countries.
BEYOND HEILIGENDAMM
* G8 leaders agreed last year in Heiligendamm, Germany, to seriously
consider a goal of halving global emissions by 2050. Japan, the European
Union and Canada have backed that goal.
* Japan wants the G8 leaders to go beyond that statement. A Chair's summary
of a G8 environment ministers' meeting in Kobe, Japan, in May said "strong
political will was expressed to go beyond this agreement on a shared vision
of long-term global goals at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit." (Reporting by
Linda Sieg and David Fogarty)
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
