Richard Ingham and Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 18 Apr 08;
Talks among major carbon emitters aimed at speeding negotiations towards a new pact on climate change ended Friday after making some headway but failing to remove roadblocks ahead of a summit in July.
"We achieved a consensus on the need for long-term and medium-term goals for reducing greenhouse-house gases... but we have not quantified targets at this stage and we regret this," said France's secretary of state for European affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet.
The two-day talks in Paris gathered ministers from Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States.
The 16 economies account for around four-fifths of global output of greenhouse gases -- the carbon pollution, stemming mainly from fossil fuels, that traps heat from the Sun and is damaging Earth's climate system.
Launched by US President George W. Bush last September, the so-called Major Economies Meetings (MEMs) aim at fast-tracking negotiations towards a new UN pact on climate change by the end of 2009.
The process also looks at how to enlist smart technology and energy-intensive industries to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
MEM leaders are to meet on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Toyako, Japan on July 7-9, and issue a declaration reflecting a "shared common vision," said Jouyet.
But there was discord over whether this horizon-scanning document should set a timetable and cap for global emissions.
"As a European, we would like to see the most quantified objectives possible, both in the medium and long term. There is a divergence with our American partners on this subject," said Jouyet.
"Discussions are continuing but there are no major breakthroughs," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told AFP.
Developing countries opposed setting any long-term goal in Toyako that was too nebulous and lacked specific pledges from the United States on emissions, he said.
As a result, the summit declaration could be limited to a vaguer statement expressing goodwill and areas where progress can be made, he said.
Two more MEM meetings will be held before the summit, one in May the other in June, to try to hammer out the declaration.
The Paris meeting was given fresh reminders that huge financial resources must be mustered to tackle climate change.
A South African assessment found that between 30 and 60 billion dollars was needed annually as of now to help poor countries cope with the impact of climate change. And 200 billion dollars was needed annually for reducing emissions.
Mexico floated an idea for a new "Multinational Climate Change Fund" gathering at least 10 billion dollars per year that would help promote the transfer of clean technologies to developing nations.
On the meeting's eve, Bush unveiled a new blueprint, based on incentives rather than on mandatory caps, that called for US emissions to peak by 2025. And he urged big developing countries to agree to concessions in a future deal.
This proposal by the world's No. 1 polluter was widely attacked as too little, too late.
Some blasted it as a step backwards to before last December's breakthrough agreement in Bali that launched the two-year UN negotiation process.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the meeting on Friday that global warming was becoming a driver of hunger, unrest and conflict.
He cited the nearly five-year-old war in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died, as an example of how water scarcity and rivalry for farmland had helped spark bloodshed.
"In Darfur, we see this explosive mixture from the impact of climate change, which prompts emigration by increasingly impoverished people, which then has consequences in war," said Sarkozy.
"If we keep going down this path, climate change will encourage the immigration of people with nothing towards areas where the population do have something, and the Darfur crisis will be only one crisis among dozens of others."
Climate talks advance, but split on 2050 goals
Alister Doyle, Reuters 18 Apr 08;
PARIS (Reuters) - Major economies made progress in defining the building blocks of a new U.N. deal to fight climate change on Friday but ended split over whether to set a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The U.S.-led meeting of 17 nations accounting for 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, ended with common ground on sharing clean technologies, financing and possible sectoral emissions goals for industries such as steel or cement.
"In my view we have made significant progress," Daniel Price, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, told reporters after two days of talks including China, Russia, India and the European Union.
The talks shifted to a more positive mood after opening with criticisms of President George W. Bush for setting only a 2025 ceiling for halting a rise in U.S. emissions when other rich nations have set 1990 caps under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.
"People are understanding each other better on a number of topics," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, who called progress "substantive" in work on a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed by the end of 2009.
Deep divisions remained about whether to set a goal of halving global emissions by 2050, favored by the European Union, Japan and Canada as part of a fight against warming that may bring more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
Developing nations said they would not sign up to such a goal at a planned summit of leaders of the 17 major economies on July 9 in Japan unless Washington did far more to curb emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
"I would be very surprised if there are specific numbers by July because the rest of the world is waiting...for that strong enough signal from the U.S.," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said.
JULY SUMMIT
Trying to break deadlock, delegates agreed to have two more meetings of experts to prepare for the July meeting, to be held on the sidelines of a July 7-9 Group of Eight summit.
The United States said it was still "seriously considering" whether to adopt a goal of halving world emissions by 2050 and that new technologies such as clean coal or new biofuels could cut emissions in coming decades.
Japan's Koji Tsuruoka, a senior foreign ministry official, said Tokyo would prefer all 17 nations to agree a 50 percent cut by 2050 rather than just the G8. Developing nations also want more aid and technology before committing themselves to curbs.
France said that South Africa presented studies suggesting it would cost the world up to $200 billion a year to curb greenhouse gases and between $30 and $60 billion a year to adapt to effects such as droughts or rising seas.
Many delegates at the meeting, the third since September in a series launched by Bush amid skepticism abroad about his environmental record, said they were starting to look to the next U.S. president who will take office in January 2009.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all favor tougher goals than Bush for curbing greenhouse gases.
Industrialized nations apart from the United States have agreed to consider cuts in emissions of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a new U.N. climate treaty to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol.
U.S. and EU greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2006, according to data submitted to the United Nations, bucking a rising global trend. U.S. emissions fell by 1.3 percent and EU emissions by 0.3 percent.
The Paris talks group the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, China, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. The European Commission, current EU president Slovenia and the United Nations were also attending.
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