SA rejects G8 climate deal

2008-07-08 11:35

Sapporo - South Africa on Tuesday dismissed an agreement by Group of Eight leaders to halve world carbon emissions by 2050 as an "empty slogan" that would not save the planet from global warming.

"While the statement may appear as a movement forward, we are concerned that it may, in effect, be a regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change," South Africa's environment minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said.

"As it is expressed in the G8 statement, the long-term goal is an empty slogan without substance," he said in a statement issued in Japan after the rich nations' club announced a deal they hailed as a breakthrough.

'Woefully insufficient'

Van Schalkwyk said the deal was woefully insufficient to stabilise the planet as greenhouse gases cause the planet to warm.

In Sapporo on the sidelines of the G8 summit that is underway some 150 kilometres away in Toyako, the minister said the long-term goal to reduce emissions by 50% by 2050 falls below what is scientifically required to stabilise the atmosphere at a relatively safe level.

He suggested that the heads of state and government of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States lacked leadership in tackling global warming.

"We came to Hokkaido with the expectation that the eight major industrialised economies of the world would demonstrate leadership on the climate change issue," he lamented.

- AFP