Yahoo News 3 Jul 09;
ROME (Reuters) - Officials from a 17-member body which account for the lions share of the world's carbon emissions will hold urgent talks next Tuesday to iron out differences on the eve of a July 8-10 summit of the G8.
Group of Eight diplomats and climate change officials told Reuters the meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) was called to narrow the gap between rich countries and developing nations such as India over long-term targets on global warming and emissions.
Leaders of MEF nations, which account for 80 percent of global emissions, are due to meet on July 9 on the sidelines of the G8 summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila.
There are hopes that they could take a decisive step forward in talks for a U.N. climate change pact due to be signed in December.
But officials said persistent differences, particularly over the size of reductions in carbon emissions and the base year for comparisons, could scupper efforts to agree a joint declaration and result instead in a chairman's summary of countries' views.
"If there is no agreement...then what we will have in the end is a chairman's summary. The meeting (on Tuesday) has been called to see if there can be an agreement of some sort," said a senior Indian official involved in the negotiations.
The current draft statement, discussed at talks in Mexico last month, omits a base year for the emissions reduction target and there is disagreement over language and nuances on long-term goals, Indian diplomats said.
Developing countries, including India, would like a base year of 1990 because this would force rich nations to cut back their emissions more sharply, leaving them more carbon space to expand their economies. But wealthy nations, such as Japan, are pushing for a more recent base year.
European diplomats confirmed the technical meeting would take place in Rome, focusing on differences over the base year and emissions targets.
While G8 countries have agreed a "vision" of a 50 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050, developing nations say it is too little and should be 80 percent.
"We are not keen on numbers like 50 percent reduction by 2050 by (rich) countries, which will freeze the existing imbalance in the distribution of the carbon space," Dinesh Patnaik, a top Indian negotiator, told Reuters.
"The Europeans and the United States were not too keen (on Tuesday's meeting) as they feel it will only add further pressure. But India insisted as they don't want anything in brackets brought to the table in L'Aquila," said one European G8 source.
(Additional reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee in Delhi)
(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Environmental group WWF urges G8 to make climate pledge
Yahoo News 3 Jul 09;
GENEVA (AFP) – The environmental group WWF on Friday urged the Group of Eight industrialised nations to show global leadership by making a commitment to keep climate change in check at their summit next week.
Echoing a call by German Chancellor Angela Merkel a day earlier, the WWF said the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, must commit to keeping the rise in global average temperature "well below" two degrees Celsius.
"A clear commitment to a two degree Celsius danger threshold on paper is an absolute must for G8 countries," said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative.
"The countries gathering in L'Aquila have the biggest responsibility to show leadership on climate. Without their action we cannot expect the rest of the world to move," he added.
Negotiations to strike a new deal to tackle global warming by the end of the year have been foundering, partly over disagreements on emissions targets and a rift between industrialised and emerging nations on the burden of responsibility for deeper cuts.
WWF said the long-term target under discussion, of 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions over 1990 levels by 2050, was at the low end of what was needed.
"This is an absolute minimum and anything weaker will be a complete failure," said Carstensen.
"A firm statement by the G8 will send a powerful signal to the developing world and make it easier for the poorer countries to slash their emissions."
Merkel on Thursday set a similar target for the two-day G8 summit which opens on Wednesday.
But she said that European Union and US targets meant little if emerging giants like China and India were not on board at the Copenhagen conference in December, when countries aim to set emissions reduction targets beyond 2012.
WWF said 17 countries in the Major Economies Forum (MEF), which it says account for about 80 percent of the world's emissions, had a particular responsibility to double investment in research and development of green technology and renewable energy by 2012.
The MEF is meeting on the sidelines of the G8 next week.
