G8 to kick off climate talks
2008-05-24 10:30
Kobe - Environment ministers from the world's richest nations and a clutch of fast-growing economies meet on Saturday to try to inject fresh momentum into efforts to tackle climate change.
Japan, home to the landmark Kyoto Protocol, hoped to use its chairmanship of the Group of Eight industrialised nations to give clearer direction to drafting the post-Kyoto treaty by the end of 2009.
During the three-day meeting in the western city of Kobe, Japan hoped to shape the course of negotiations on a new climate treaty on curbing global warming, eyeing a breakthrough when it hosts the July 07-09 G8 summit.
Officials from the G8 nations along with countries including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Australia, South Korea and South Africa, were set to gather here to try and pave the way to an agreement.
Climate change
Ahead of the weekend meeting, international aid group Oxfam voiced concern that political momentum to tackle climate change appeared to be flagging under Japan's leadership.
"The endless debate about 'considering' reducing emissions is long gone. We need carbon cuts and we need this to happen now," Oxfam campaigner Takumo Yamada said in the statement.
"Japan must overcome its internal squabbling and show the same leadership on this as the Germans did last year. Anything less would be a clear step backward in the fight to combat global warming," Yamada said.
The Kyoto Protocol's obligations for rich nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming expires at the end of 2012. UN scientists warned that climate change could put millions of people at risk by century's end.
Leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States agreed at the G8 summit last year in Germany to set a non-binding goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
EU introduces 'cap-and-trade' system
Japan had sought seek wider support for its own "sectoral" approach, in which each industry was judged by its efficiency.
The Japanese government believed this option was more attractive to developing countries and those reluctant to have a top-down target figure imposed on them.
However, the European Union had already introduced a "cap-and-trade" system, proposing ambitious global emission reductions of 25 to 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels.
A carbon-trading system sets a cap on the amount of pollutants that companies can emit and forces heavy polluters to buy credits from firms that pollute less - creating financial incentives to fight global warming.
Emissions trading had become a rapidly growing market in the European Union and an increasing number of US states and municipalities.
Japan's Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita, who had said that Japan on its own should seek an European Union-size ambitious emission cut by 2020, thought the country would eventually have to introduce a cap-and-trade plan in a post-Kyoto climate deal.