Climate change: G8 summit boosts pressure for pact

Anne Chaon Yahoo News 6 Jul 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Leaders of the world's established and emerging economic powerhouses will be under pressure at this week's G8 summit to give a badly-needed jolt to the quest for a new global climate pact.

Negotiators struggling to seal an agreement in Denmark by year's end say the three-day summit, opening on Wednesday in L'Aquila, Italy, is a golden opportunity to haul the process out of a rut.

"It's time to make a difference," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where the post-2012 treaty is being brokered, told AFP.

"It's one of those moments in history where leadership will be remembered, but failure will also be remembered."

The L'Aquila meetings firstly gather the heads of the most industrialised nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- who will then huddle with leaders of the emerging giants.

Together, their economies account for a whopping 80 percent of the heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" emissions driving dangerous climate change.

Climate change has been an automatic part of the G8 since the Gleneagles summit in Scotland in 2005.

But the results of three successive summits and lengthy communiques have been meagre, mainly due to a rearguard action by former US president George W. Bush, fighting demands for tough emissions curbs.

With little more than five months left to the talks in Copenhagen many hopes are riding on Barack Obama, who has ripped up Bush's climate strategies.

The G8 has prepared a draft communique calling on global emissions to peak by 2020 and then be "substantially reduced" to peg the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a US non-governmental organisation, said the 2 C (3.6 F) objective was big news.

"That is new and that is significant -- because you haven't had the US under President Bush willing to say anything about the two degree limit," said Meyer.

But Meyer also noted there were no specifics among the industrialised powers on how to share out emissions curbs for 2020.

Nor were there any details on how to help poor countries tackle climate change and their own fossil-fuel emissions.

According to a German source, a push by Berlin for the G8 to agree a common goal for 2020 has so far met with a lukewarm reception, even from fellow Europeans. The European Union (EU) is targeting an eventual 20 percent fall on emissions, compared to 1990.

For its part, the US has set itself a target of a 17 percent reduction by 2020 over 2005 levels, which represents only a four percent fall on 1990, a goal which the EU regards as insufficient.

The 16-nation Major Economies Forum (MEF) -- which brings together the G8 members and emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil -- have scheduled a meeting on Thursday where leaders will also endorse the 2 C (3.6 F) goal.

They will also support an "aspirational" global goal of halving emissions by 2050, according to a draft communique.

Such pledges are fine but limited, said Brice Lalonde, France's ambassador on climate change.

"It's easy enough to set out a target for 2050, but much more difficult for 2020. And what's more, any long-term objective will have much more credibility if you can explain how you intend to achieve it," he said.

Meyer said the L'Aquila meetings faced a core dilemma.

The G8 countries are reluctant to commit themselves to specific goals until they see strong promises on how emerging powers will avoid becoming the carbon culprits of tomorrow, he said.

But poorer countries are loth to sign up to much until they see what rich countries are prepared to do.

Green groups say the onus lies on rich countries that are historically most to blame for today's warming and best placed to shoulder the cost of dealing with the problem.

"We expect and we need a clear signal from the G8 leaders on emissions reduction targets for 2020... If not the G8, who else?" asked Tobias Muenchmeyer, deputy director at Greenpeace's political unit.

Major nations should set clear 2050 CO2 cuts: UN
Alister Doyle, Reuters 6 Jul 09;

OSLO (Reuters) - Major nations should set clear and ambitious goals for 2050 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions this week as a step toward a new U.N. climate pact, the U.N.'s top climate change official said on Monday.

"These are the countries that can make the difference...it's certainly the time to make the difference," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters of a meeting of 17 major emitters during a July 8-10 Group of Eight summit.

He said the "Major Economies Forum" (MEF), which includes China, India and Brazil alongside G8 nations, had a "moral responsibility" to show leadership in working out a U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

MEF nations, which account for 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions largely caused by burning fossil fuels, will consider a goal of cutting world greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050, according to a draft text.

"The yardstick (for success) for me is a clear -- not a fuzzy -- long-term goal," de Boer said.

Last year the G8 outlined a "vision" of halving emissions by 2050, without setting a base year. Major developing countries did not sign up for a 2050 goal, arguing the rich first had to set deep cuts in their own national emissions by 2020.

A recent MEF draft added the word "aspirational" for 2050 goals after U.S. insistence, according to Tobias Muencheyer of environmental group Greenpeace. It also omits a base year.

2020 GOALS

Among other yardsticks, de Boer said it was "important that the industrialized country members of the MEF set ambitious national goals for 2020."

He also urged developed nations to work out plans to provide developing nations with short-term finance to help them cope with ever more floods, heatwaves, storms and rising sea levels.

De Boer said 2050 goals could help investors choose, for instance, between building a cheaper coal-fired power plant that could risk penalties in future for high greenhouse gas emissions or a more costly but cleaner solar power plant.

"The man or woman in the street may wonder why you are asking for something for 2050," he said. "I think it's important, if gives a clear investment signal to business -- provided it's ambitious."

And he said there were several ways to formulate a long-term goal for combating climate change.

The European Union, for instance, wants to limit a rise in global temperatures to a maximum of 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. Temperatures rose about 0.7 Celsius in the last century.

Other goals are targets for deep cuts in emissions, favored by U.S. President Barack Obama, or setting a maximum for greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)

G8 leaders to set emissions goals
Roger Harrabin, BBC News 6 Jul 09;

The G8 leaders are set this week to deliver their strongest statement so far on global warming.

They are likely to agree that the world ought to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 - with rich nations reducing them by 80%.

The group will probably also say that any human-induced temperature rise should be held to 2C - a level considered to be a danger threshold.

The US has previously objected to such a clause.

But it looks as though the G8 will fall short of agreeing the short-term targets scientists say are essential to ensure that the 2C threshold is not breached.

Environmental campaigners accuse the G8 of willing the ends on climate change but not willing the means.

American officials have privately told BBC News they cannot cut emissions as fast as the science requires, because the issue is still too politically contentious in the US Congress.

I understand that the US is also delaying the G8 climate communique in the hope of obtaining more commitment from emerging nations on the issue.

Technology potential

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama chairs a meeting of the G8 members with the leaders of the emerging economies, including India and China, under a process known as the Major Economies Forum (MEF).

That meeting will produce a declaration separate from the G8. Opinions among the emerging economies vary widely. India opposes commitments on cutting emissions. It has millions living in poverty and considers that the problem should be solved by rich nations. India is suspicious of signing up to the 2C warming threshold because it implicitly puts a cap on Indian growth.

China is committed to achieving a low-carbon economy, but slowly so as to cause minimum social and economic upheaval.

"We have to persuade China that it is in China's interests to move quickly to a low-carbon economy - that will be be key," a western diplomatic source said.

Brazil is the most significant of the emerging nations to sign up to the 2C threshold. "This is extremely significant," said the source. "It is an acknowledgement from political leaders to their peoples that there are scientific limits to how far we can push the planet."

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Professor RK Pachauri, told BBC News: "I don't think we can hold out great hopes for the MEF - it is G8 that had to make the key decisions here on emissions cuts and on funding to help poorer countries to adapt to climate change and obtain clean energy supplies."

Recently, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed that rich nations should put $100bn into a fund to help poor countries deal with climate change; but I understand the figures on the table so far at the G8 are very much lower than this.

The former UK premier Tony Blair has urged the group's leaders to seize the moment, to tackle climate change with major emissions cuts by 2020.

He has been working on a private initiative with a business-oriented NGO called The Climate Group.

It has produced a new report which champions green technologies, arguing that they offer the chance of "substantial job creation and growth".

The report also says the technologies needed to meet emissions reduction goals set for 2020 are "already proven, available now and the policies needed to implement them known".

This means ramping up existing policies on energy efficiency, new appliance standards and renewable energy.

Mr Blair told BBC News that significant emissions cuts could be achieved by halting deforestation and the degradation of forests; something that could be done if rich nations paid poor nations to protect their forests (though this seemingly simple policy is fraught with practical difficulties).

Copenhagen challenge

"I think it's very understandable at a time of major economic crisis that people are very daunted by the additional challenge of climate change," Mr Blair said.

"I think the single most important thing we found is that almost three-quarters of what you want to do can come from existing and known technologies and actions. It has to be done. There is no option."

HAVE YOUR SAY Anything is achievable, the REAL question is do Governments have the will? Chris, Bucks

Mr Blair said there had been a huge change in the attitude of world leaders to climate change: "In 2005, there was a lot of resistance when I put it on the G8 agenda. We were able to come out with some broad, general principles - it was a big step forwards.

"But in the intervening period, this has moved a long way. I think leaders are now focused on practical policy implications.

"This is now at the stage where it's been taken out of the hands of campaigners (although they are still important) and into the hands of the people who are going to have to get the job done.

"We have an American administration committed to tackling climate change. We have a Chinese administration that's no longer saying, 'you guys have created the problem - you solve it', but has immersed itself in this challenge.

"And you have a general acceptance on the part of most sensible people that we have to deal with it. I think you will see a significant move forward before Copenhagen." (The UN conference to seal a new global climate deal in December)

Campaigners will welcome Mr Blair's intervention but may be sceptical about his confidence in the outcomes.

In his term of office the UK Treasury adopted a laissez-faire energy policy which has left the UK with one of the lowest shares of renewable energy in Europe, despite having one of the best potentials for renewable power.

I asked Mr Blair if he would have pursued a different energy policy with hindsight. He declined to comment.

A group of 22 leading climate scientists has written to G8 and MEF leaders calling for policies that would see global emissions peak by 2020, and shrink by at least 50% by 2050.

"Unless the burden of poverty in developing nations is alleviated by significant financial support for mitigation, adaptation, and the reduction of deforestation, the ability of developing countries to pursue sustainable development is likely to diminish, to the economic and environmental detriment of all," the scientists said.