G-8's Kobe environmental meeting targets new 2050 cuts
Surya B. Prasai
May 30, 2008
The recent talks on committing the industrialized G-8 countries to new environmental emission cuts in Kobe, Japan, have resulted in a new prolonged target deadline stretching to 2050. The Group of Eight is composed of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, and Russia, the eight leading industrial nations, whose heads of government hold regular meetings known as the G-8 summit. However, environment chiefs and government officials from the European Commission, the UN, the 10 emerging economies, including China, India and Brazil, and eight international organizations were also invited to be present at the gathering.
The G-8 held the three day meeting in Kobe, in a bid to set the tone for their July 7 meeting planned in the Japanese resort of Toyako focusing on climate change. Speaking to the media, the UN´s climate chief Yvo de Boer, stated that the U. S. and Japan were focusing too much on fixing long-range objectives for 2050 and industry-by-industry goals. His view given to AFP last week was, "If you are a businessman planning an investment, you probably want to know more about where governments intend to go in 2020 rather than the middle of the century."
However, the G-8 ministers did discuss the 3Rs, along with biodiversity and climate change. The G-8 called for according high priority to waste reduction and concrete actions to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags and other single-use consumer products. They also advocated effective use of waste as one of the alternative sources of energy to fossil fuel resources by developing and utilizing technologies that help generate heat and power from organic and other wastes.
During the meeting, some of the G-77 industrializing nations ministers, such as Indonesia, had called for voluntary cuts from the G-8 to serve as an inspiration in their own efforts to reduce global warming. Scientists believe a potential rise between 2 to 3 degrees Celsius is enough to cause serious warming leading to drought and food deficits in nearly 40 developing countries. At the current trend, they believe, it could happen in the next three decades, if current emission standards are not met.
The United States, for instance has already set itself a midterm goal at 2025, a cutoff point for its own emission levels. In fact, before the Paris meeting, President Bush had announced a new national goal to stop the growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, which it considers a major step forward in ongoing efforts to address climate change. The goal outlines how the growth in emissions will slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter, so long as technology continues to advance. However the U.S. has also stated that top polluters like China, India, Brazil, Australia, and now Indonesia, that they must commit themselves to higher curbs on emission levels. Japan has called for leniency in emission standards for industrialized countries and has stopped short of a 2020 target, since halting G-8 industrial production could slow down global economic growth as a whole.
Among the European countries, France and Germany have worked on promotion of clean and alternate energy development, since they believe in sustaining a conscientious dialogue with the developing countries. "A long-term goal is not a substitute for midterm, mandatory targets," stated Matthias Machnig, Germany's environment minister who has been vocal in past meetings in embracing stronger G-77 actions currently led by China to come to a mid-way understanding.
The meeting also coincided with rising concern that momentum is draining from the Kyoto Protocol which goes by a December 2009 deadline. It was earlier noted during the UNFCCC´s first major follow-up summit after Bali held in Bangkok between 31 March to 4 April 2008, that there was developing countries´ opposition to Japan´s introduction of a ´bottom-up sectoral approach´ proposal, which received support from major industrialized countries like the US, Canada and Australia but was considered an environmental bottleneck by strong lobby leaders such as China, India and Brazil. The irony is all these countries form the first and second tier of the global polluters list being either fully industrialized power houses or emerging lead developing economies and have been jointly championing the interests of the developing countries since the Bali Meet in January 2008.
Thus, the question being repeated after Kobe is: Why the uncontrolled global warming despite the Kyoto Protocol? The fact is, the Kyoto Protocol is the ´Spring Baby´ of the 1997 UN climate summit held in Kyoto, Japan. Its adherence can only be as strong as the UN member states commit themselves to . it requires nations to minimize carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources to at least five per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, a target that will not be realistically feasible going by current trends. Therefore, it seems there must be a closer reality check on the environmental standards being adopted by the poorer countries and those that are being practiced by the richer ones. The level of environmental consciousness is also not the same among both group of countries, one being developed and the other developing.
In Kobe, Japan's Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita defended the meeting´s outcome stating that all sides had shown a "strong will" to move forward with an agreement. Kamoshita stated, "In terms of mid-term targets, that is an issue negotiated at multinational meetings." He, however, urged the world's industrialized countries to take the necessary steps to prove themselves a model worthy for the developing counties to emulate, in other words to accept the fact that for the moment, emissions by more than 50 percent by mid-century, is still the G-8 target, but other targets can be met by voluntarily accelerating alternate and clean energy use research and development. But still, the Kobe talks did not signal moving to the more immediate goal -- coming up with commitments on slashing greenhouse gas emissions once the Kyoto Protocol's obligations expire in 2012.
So the big questions till remains: what will happen to Bali and the Kyoto Protocol? More than 180 countries had acceded to the Bali pact in January 2009 to reach a post-Kyoto deal at a conference in late 2009 planned in Copenhagen, and from the UN angle, the cut-off point at the moment looks a bit difficult to reach.
The G-8 held the three day meeting in Kobe, in a bid to set the tone for their July 7 meeting planned in the Japanese resort of Toyako focusing on climate change. Speaking to the media, the UN´s climate chief Yvo de Boer, stated that the U. S. and Japan were focusing too much on fixing long-range objectives for 2050 and industry-by-industry goals. His view given to AFP last week was, "If you are a businessman planning an investment, you probably want to know more about where governments intend to go in 2020 rather than the middle of the century."
However, the G-8 ministers did discuss the 3Rs, along with biodiversity and climate change. The G-8 called for according high priority to waste reduction and concrete actions to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags and other single-use consumer products. They also advocated effective use of waste as one of the alternative sources of energy to fossil fuel resources by developing and utilizing technologies that help generate heat and power from organic and other wastes.
During the meeting, some of the G-77 industrializing nations ministers, such as Indonesia, had called for voluntary cuts from the G-8 to serve as an inspiration in their own efforts to reduce global warming. Scientists believe a potential rise between 2 to 3 degrees Celsius is enough to cause serious warming leading to drought and food deficits in nearly 40 developing countries. At the current trend, they believe, it could happen in the next three decades, if current emission standards are not met.
The United States, for instance has already set itself a midterm goal at 2025, a cutoff point for its own emission levels. In fact, before the Paris meeting, President Bush had announced a new national goal to stop the growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, which it considers a major step forward in ongoing efforts to address climate change. The goal outlines how the growth in emissions will slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter, so long as technology continues to advance. However the U.S. has also stated that top polluters like China, India, Brazil, Australia, and now Indonesia, that they must commit themselves to higher curbs on emission levels. Japan has called for leniency in emission standards for industrialized countries and has stopped short of a 2020 target, since halting G-8 industrial production could slow down global economic growth as a whole.
Among the European countries, France and Germany have worked on promotion of clean and alternate energy development, since they believe in sustaining a conscientious dialogue with the developing countries. "A long-term goal is not a substitute for midterm, mandatory targets," stated Matthias Machnig, Germany's environment minister who has been vocal in past meetings in embracing stronger G-77 actions currently led by China to come to a mid-way understanding.
The meeting also coincided with rising concern that momentum is draining from the Kyoto Protocol which goes by a December 2009 deadline. It was earlier noted during the UNFCCC´s first major follow-up summit after Bali held in Bangkok between 31 March to 4 April 2008, that there was developing countries´ opposition to Japan´s introduction of a ´bottom-up sectoral approach´ proposal, which received support from major industrialized countries like the US, Canada and Australia but was considered an environmental bottleneck by strong lobby leaders such as China, India and Brazil. The irony is all these countries form the first and second tier of the global polluters list being either fully industrialized power houses or emerging lead developing economies and have been jointly championing the interests of the developing countries since the Bali Meet in January 2008.
Thus, the question being repeated after Kobe is: Why the uncontrolled global warming despite the Kyoto Protocol? The fact is, the Kyoto Protocol is the ´Spring Baby´ of the 1997 UN climate summit held in Kyoto, Japan. Its adherence can only be as strong as the UN member states commit themselves to . it requires nations to minimize carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources to at least five per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, a target that will not be realistically feasible going by current trends. Therefore, it seems there must be a closer reality check on the environmental standards being adopted by the poorer countries and those that are being practiced by the richer ones. The level of environmental consciousness is also not the same among both group of countries, one being developed and the other developing.
In Kobe, Japan's Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita defended the meeting´s outcome stating that all sides had shown a "strong will" to move forward with an agreement. Kamoshita stated, "In terms of mid-term targets, that is an issue negotiated at multinational meetings." He, however, urged the world's industrialized countries to take the necessary steps to prove themselves a model worthy for the developing counties to emulate, in other words to accept the fact that for the moment, emissions by more than 50 percent by mid-century, is still the G-8 target, but other targets can be met by voluntarily accelerating alternate and clean energy use research and development. But still, the Kobe talks did not signal moving to the more immediate goal -- coming up with commitments on slashing greenhouse gas emissions once the Kyoto Protocol's obligations expire in 2012.
So the big questions till remains: what will happen to Bali and the Kyoto Protocol? More than 180 countries had acceded to the Bali pact in January 2009 to reach a post-Kyoto deal at a conference in late 2009 planned in Copenhagen, and from the UN angle, the cut-off point at the moment looks a bit difficult to reach.