G8 in climate dispute with poor states
Big emerging economies will come under pressure today to respond to an initiative by rich countries to work towards a target of at least halving their global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations want the leaders of eight fast growing countries to adopt a “shared vision” of tackling global warming in U.N. negotiations due to conclude in Copenhagen in December 2009.
“There has been major progress on the climate change agenda beyond what people thought possible a few months ago,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said of yesterday’s agreement.
“For the first time the G8 has said we will adopt at least a 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 as part of a worldwide agreement that we hope to get in Copenhagen,” he said.
The U.N.-led talks aim to create a new framework for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Critics said the agreement was a timid advance on last year’s summit commitment in Heiligendamm, Germany, to seriously consider the 2050 goal of halving emissions by mid-century.
“This is a complete failure of responsibility. They haven’t moved forward at all. They’ve ducked the responsibility of adopting clear midterm targets and even the 2050 target is not a single thing more than what we got in Heiligendamm,”said Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International’s political adviser.
Environmental group WWF called the G8’s stance “pathetic”. Even one of the G8 signatories sounded a note of caution.
“We are ready to cooperate on this goal on understanding that it is not legally binding,” said Alexander Pankin, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official. “It is very difficult to imagine a government subscribing to something which happens 42 years later.”
G8 members include Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Italy.