G8 Environment Ministers: Halve Emissions By 2050
JAPAN: May 27, 2008
KOBE, Japan - Environment ministers from the G8 rich nations on Monday urged
their leaders to set a global target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by
2050, a small but vital step in the fight against climate change.
But they stopped short of suggesting specific interim targets ahead of 2050,
a key demand of developing countries in tough UN-led talks to forge a new
treaty on global warming by the end of next year.
Germany's secretary of state for the environment, Matthias Machnig, said the
ministers had sent an important signal to their leaders on the direction in
which talks needed to go.
"We made a step here today, a small one, but a very important one," he told
a joint news conference.
About 190 nations have agreed to negotiate by the end of 2009 a successor
treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 37 advanced nations to cut
emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
But wide gaps exist inside the G8 and between rich and poorer nations over
how to share the burden for fighting the climate change that causes
droughts, rising seas and more severe storms.
Ministers from the Group of Eight and major emerging countries had sought in
weekend talks in western Japan to build momentum ahead of a July summit in
Toyako, northern Japan.
The G8 agreed last year in Germany to consider halving global emissions by
mid-century, a proposal favoured by Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan
and Canada but opposed so far by the United States and Russia.
"On climate change, we strongly expressed the will to try to come to an
agreement at the Toyako summit (in July) so we can have a target of at least
halving emissions by 2050," Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita
told a news conference.
"To halve emissions, advanced countries should exercise leadership to
achieve major cuts."
Emerging and developing countries want the G8 to take the lead by setting
numerical targets for emissions cuts by 2020, a stance also backed by the
European Union.
WHO GOES FIRST?
"As for mid-term targets, it is necessary to set effective targets and
advanced countries should lead the way," Kamoshita said, but he added it
might not be appropriate to specify numbers now and added that developing
countries with rapidly increasing emissions also needed to curtail their
increases.
How far G8 leaders will be able to go in July, when they get together with
leaders from big emerging countries, is still in some doubt given that the
United States insists that major emerging economies like China and India
help curb emissions.
"For these goals to have meaning, we need to include not just the G8
countries but all countries that have significant emissions," said Scott
Fulton, deputy head of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Bickering over who goes first raises the danger that the planet will run out
of time, said British Environment Minister Hilary Benn.
"If we play who goes first, we are sunk," he told Reuters in an interview,
noting that US climate change policy was likely to change after a new
president is elected in November.
Some environmental activists said the ministers had made progress -- but not
very much.
"We're at the point where there needs to be a very ambitious message out of
the G8 summit for international talks on climate change to move forward,"
said Mika Obayashi of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, an NGO.
"So in that sense, this meeting was just a quarter of a step forward. They
didn't specify where they would set targets in the long-term, nor did they
go beyond saying that mid-term targets should be effective."
The G8 ministers also stressed the need for funds to help developing
countries adapt to climate change and limit their emissions.
But they said private sector investments were needed in addition to
government funds to pay for efforts that top UN climate negotiator said
would require "hundreds of billions of dollars a year" would be needed over
the longer term.
"Finance will help to unlock contributions from developing and emerging
economies to solving the problem, without which we can't do it for reasons
of the science and the maths," Benn said.
(Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by John Chalmers)
Story by Linda Sieg
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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