Date published: 2008/07/08
The BBC says:
Five of the biggest emerging economies have urged leading industrial nations to do more to combat climate change.
Mexico, Brazil, China, India and South Africa challenged the Group of Eight countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% by 2050.
The so-called G5 countries threw down the gauntlet in a statement before they joined the G8 summit in Japan.
Earlier, the G8 restated a lower target of 50% cuts over the same period, which environmentalists said was "pathetic".
...
The five nations also urged developed countries to commit to an interim target of a 25-40% cut below 1990 levels by 2020.
...
The EU had wanted the G8 to confirm that the 50% cut would be measured from 1990 levels of CO2 - as agreed under the Kyoto climate protocol.But when the question was raised in a press conference Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said the cuts would be measured from "current levels".
Our correspondent says this is significant in several ways, not least because a 50% cut from now is worth far less than a 50% cut from 1990 levels.
These country-by-country cuts are rather silly. First of all, rich nations can pay poor nations to emit on their behalf (obviously not all emissions, but certainly a large chunk). Secondly, what matters is global emissions. The world should be aiming to achieve a certain reduction in global emissions by 2050. Setting targets just for countries that happen to be rich now could well end up being totally irrelevant. So what if the UK is dirt poor in 2050 and India is filthy rich (it's perhaps not the most likely scenario but it could happen)? That would mean that UK emissions will have dropped remarkably just for this reason alone, and meanwhile the Indian emissions could (or would) have rocketed. What the world needs is a global carbon tax.
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