GLOBAL TALKS ON NEW CLIMATE DEAL MUST START NOW, COMMISSIONER SAYS
03.30.07 - Leído 92 veces. Enviar esta notaHelena Spongenberg
EU environment minister Stavros Dimas wants increased European efforts to help kick-start an international post-Kyoto climate deal aimed at limiting the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
BRUSSELS, Belgium; March 30, 2007.- Speaking before MEPs in the European Parliament’s environment committee on Tuesday (27 March) Mr Dimas said a global climate deal should be an issue at all meetings – bilateral as well as multilateral – which the EU attends.
“We have to start negotiations in Bali this year to make an agreement in 2009,” Mr Dimas stated.
“We should use all meetings prior to that – both bilateral and multilateral,” he said, adding that it would help make progress on a post-Kyoto agreement.
Environment ministers from across the world are widely expected to agree on a mandate to start negotiations to replace the UN Kyoto Protocol - the international plan to fight global warming by limiting CO2 emissions which runs out in 2012 - at a December meeting in Bali, Indonesia, this year.
EU member Denmark announced last week that it is set to hold the UN climate summit in December 2009 where the Nordic country wants to clinch a new global climate deal.
“We expect a lot from the member states and from [the parliament] to make the necessary pressure and to raise awareness,” Mr Dimas told MEPs.
G8 MEETING IN JUNE
He also described the G8 meeting in June organised by Germany – the current holder of both the EU and the G8 presidencies - as one of the most important gatherings ahead of the Bali UN climate summit noting that expects progress to be made “especially at the G8.”
“If this small number of leaders of big countries cannot agree, how can more than 200 leaders meeting in Bali agree?” Mr Dimas asked.
The world’s eight biggest economies – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US – are currently responsible for 52 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions.
However, the rapidly expanding economies of China and India are showing a swift increase in CO2 emissions - China is already the second largest polluter.
There is a lot of interest from China in energy efficiency because saving energy means saving money, Mr Dimas said, but added that there is less interest from India on the issue.
The EU executive is keen to get rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, China and India on the bandwagon for a global deal albeit with a “differentiated” treatment to the already industrialised countries.
He explained that from meetings with China and India, it has become very clear that if the world’s number one CO2 polluter – the US – would not sign up to the agreement, then neither will they.
“We have to focus on the US. We must be both cooperative and critical and give them the arguments in order to press the decision makers,” Mr Dimas said.
(EUobserver)
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