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U.N. Wants To Revive Fight Against Climate Change

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The Associated Press

Published: May 25, 2008

KOBE, Japan - The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases.

The ministers gathered in the western Japanese city of Kobe for a three-day meeting as evidence mounted that rising world temperatures have been taking a toll on the Earth at a faster rate than previously forecast.

The officials from the Group of Eight countries, joined by representatives from other countries, including China, and other organizations, were to lay the foundations for the upcoming G8 summit in northern Japan in July.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press that he was concerned about stalling momentum behind international talks to forge a global warming pact by December 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Its first phase ends in 2012.
De Boer cited a recently announced U.S. climate plan that would allow an increase in emissions, Canada's indication that it will not meet its obligations under the Kyoto agreement and European industry's skepticism about the EU goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

To rejuvenate the talks, G8 countries - the United States, Japan, Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Canada - need to decide on midterm targets for reducing carbon emissions by 2020, make a clearer commitment to helping poorer nations deal with climate change, and form a dialogue with top developing countries such as China to run parallel with the U.N.-led talks, he said.

Hilary Benn, British environmental chief, argued that the world had no choice but to act against climate change now that scientists have shown that the Earth can only absorb a limited amount of greenhouse gases before temperatures rise too high.

"The fundamental problem we have is a political one," he said. "How do we divide up between all the nations of the Earth in a fair manner the ability to emit that limited quantity of emissions so that we avoid dangerous climate change?"

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