– Oh good. Another meeting to talk about maybe doing something.
– Let’s have a lot of people come and we’ll spend a lot of money and we’ll publish a very important paper at the end stating the ‘sense’ of the meeting and listing all the things that should be done – if anyone was actually thinking of doing anything – before the next meeting.
– Sorry, I just couldn’t resist adding the red highlights myself to show just how pompous and toothless this meeting and its ‘statement ‘ were.
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KOBE–The Group of Eight Environment Ministers Meeting closed here Monday with a chairman’s summary statement from Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita urging developed countries to agree to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at the G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July.
“It was noted that in order to halve global greenhouse gas emissions [by 2050], developed countries should take the lead in achieving a significant reduction,” Kamoshita said, reading aloud the statement during the closing ceremony.
The summary was made with the agreement of environment ministers of the G-8 nations and 10 other nations–including major emitters China and India–which held intensive and extensive discussions with the officials of international organizations such as the Global Environment Facility, World Bank and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as representatives from nongovernmental organizations.
Kamoshita also said in the statement, “A strong political will was expressed to go beyond the agreement [made in the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit, where G-8 leaders agreed to seriously consider reducing the emissions by at least half by 2050].”
Although many developing countries and NGOs demanded that G-8 countries set midterm goals for reducing the emissions, they simply said in the statement that they recognized the need to set effective targets, taking into account the report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that urged the developed nations to reduce the emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020.
The summary mentioned that for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak and then decrease within the next 10-20 years, developed countries must commit to quantified national emission targets.
Kamoshita also said in the statement that a bottom-up calculation for the amount of emissions that can be reduced by different economic and other sectors in a country was recognized as a useful tool to set national reduction targets, adding that developed countries should give developing countries assistance if they try to use the method.
The statement also said that appropriate technologies and funding from the international community are essential to promoting conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity in developing countries.
The Kobe Initiative proposed by Kamoshita in the environment ministers meeting, which involves establishing an international research network, was also included in the summary statement.
– follow this link to your very own copy of this toothless wonder: ➡