Climate Change Key Issue for 2007 G8

Climate Change Key Issue for 2007 G8



Feb 2007 - Senior legislators 
from the world's eight largest industrialized countries and 
five key emerging economies are shaping their policy 
statements on global warming in advance of this year's G8 
Summit in June at the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, 
Germany. Germany currently holds the Presidency of the G8 
group of nations. 
For two days last week, the lawmakers convened in the U.S. 
Congress for the Legislators Forum on Climate Change and 
Energy Security. 
The forum was part of the G8+5 Climate Change Legislators 
Dialogue in which more than 80 legislators and government 
officials from the 20 largest energy consuming countries 
participated. 
The participation of five emerging economies - China, India, 
South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil - is important because they 
are some of the greatest greenhouse gas polluters, and their 
involvement in reducing emissions is crucial to success in 
limiting global warming. 
They joined representatives of the G8 countries - Canada, 
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and 
the United States. 
Leaders from the private sector and civil society also joined 
the discussion, along with U.S. Senators and Representatives 
from both political parties. 
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the forum, saying in 
a video message, "The impact of climate change affects 
industrialized countries and emerging economies to the same 
extent. Protecting our economic future through innovation, 
energy efficiency and renewable energies is a global 
challenge." 
German Chancellor Angela Merkel 
"There is, therefore, a good chance that we will finally find 
a common basis for global climate protection," the chancellor 
said. "I have made this one of the priorities of the German EU 
and G8 Presidencies." 
"I'll be looking for fundamental answers on how we can prevent 
global warming of the Earth's atmosphere from rising more than 
2°C Celsius and how we can guarantee our energy supplies in 
the long term," she said. 
The EU wants to limit global warming to no more than 2°C above 
the temperature in pre-industrial times. 
Beyond the 2°C increase, scientists suggest there is a tipping 
point beyond which they predict catastrophic environmental and 
economic events such as the loss of 95 percent of coral reefs, 
irreversible damage to the world’s major forests, and sea 
level rise that threatens human life, property, and whole 
societies. 
But the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change released earlier this month warned that 
temperatures might rise far further. 
Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C since 
the late 19th century, and about 0.3°C over the past 25 years. 

Chancellor Merkel said that at the upcoming G8 Summit she 
wants to highlight three elements of a climate strategy - a 
global and ambitious increase in energy efficiency, renewable 
energies and CO2-free power plants, and efficient economic 
incentives through a global carbon market. 
The Legislators Forum on Climate Change ended Thursday with a 
statement endorsed by all participants and sent to Chancellor 
Merkel. They called for greenhouse gas emissions targets to be 
set by 2009 for the period after the current Kyoto Protocol 
targets expire in 2012. 
The protocol is an international agreement under the UN 
Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC. 
"In order to ensure that the long term goal is met," the 
Legislators Forum said in its statement, "we urge G8 and +5 
governments when they meet at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, 
to agree on the key elements of a post-2012 framework and to 
urge that global negotiations on such a framework be launched 
at the Bali meeting of the UNFCCC in November, to be concluded 
by 2009." 
The Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, where the G8 Summit 
will take place June 6 to 8, 2007 
All of the G8 countries, with the exception of the United 
States, are legally bound under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol to 
reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate 
change by an average of 5.2 percent by 2012. But no emissions 
targets have been agreed upon after that date. 
The announcement by legislators from the top polluting 
countries in the world that negotiations for the next round of 
emission cuts should end no later than 2009 is a positive 
development in the battle to slow global warming, said the 
global conservation organization WWF. 
"The EU should decide at its spring Council meeting March 8–9, 
2007 to set a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 
30 percent by 2020," WWF said. 
That percentage is right on point with the intentions of the 
European Commission, the EU's executive branch. 
Environment Commissionioner Stavros Dimas said today in a 
speech to the European Trade Union Confederation in Brussels, 
"In order to stay within the 2 degrees limit, the group of 
developed countries must reduce its emissions to 30 percent 
below 1990 levels by 2020 and between 60 and 80 percent by 
2050. 
EU Environment Ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday adopted 
conclusions on the EU’s objectives for the future of 
international climate change action. These stress the urgent 
need for a global agreement on emission reductions, so as to 
avoid any gap when the Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012. 
The ministers supported a target of emissions cuts to 20 
percent below their 1990 levels and said that could be pushed 
to 30 percent below 1990 levels if other industrial countries 
sign on to a global effort. 
The key is the willingness of the +5 governments, some of the 
most populous and polluting countries in the world, to cut 
back on their greenhouse gas emissions. 
The Legislators Forum said it expects the G8 and +5 
governments to identify, at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, "a 
measurable long-term goal to stabilize greenhouse gas 
concentrations in the atmosphere." 
"Our belief is that this goal should be to stabilize 
concentrations at a level between 450 and 550 parts per 
million of CO2 equivalent," they said, "while recognizing that 
meeting the EU's 2 degrees Celsius target would require 
stabilization at the lower end of this range." 
"To achieve this goal we will need a combination of a binding 
UN framework signed up to by all the major economies, together 
with bilateral and multilateral partnerships, recognizing the 
responsibility of developed countries to lead," the 
legislators said. 
Limiting greenhouse gas emissions now will be less costly than 
doing so later, the legislators acknowledged. 
"The World Bank estimates that adapting to the unavoidable 
impacts of climate change will require an additional US$10-40 
billion per year," the Forum statement says. "If we do not act 
now to reduce emissions, this figure will increase 
dramatically and there will be severe impacts on public health 
and the availability of critical resources, including water." 
"Adaptation needs to be mainstreamed into development policies 
and should be linked to overseas development aid and supported 
by integrated financial mechanisms," the legislators said. 
"Energy efficiency is the most cost effective way to decrease 
greenhouse gas emissions," they said. 
U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe says legislators must lead the 
response to climate change. 
U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, is co-chair of 
the International Climate Change Taskforce. In her speech to 
the Legislators' Forum Snowe said, "I believe we are 
witnessing a sea-change in acceptance of the reality of global 
warming; the issue has intensified not only environmentally 
but also politically and, as such, has dramatically changed 
the prospect for passing climate change legislation 
substantially for the better." 
"We have unquestionably reached scientific critical mass," 
Snowe said, "the question now is can we gather the political 
critical mass?" 

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