Brussels, 04/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The fight against climate change is a priority at the Summit of the most industrialised countries taking place on 7-8 June in Elmau (Germany). Ahead of this G-7 summit and six months before the Paris conference (COP 21, 30 November -11 December), there were increasing calls for the level of ambition to be increased because negotiations are stalling in Bonn and the Intended National Decided Contributions (INDCs) to the future global agreement are not enough to meet the 2°C target, far from it.
In a column published in the French newspaper, Le Monde, on Thursday 4 June, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, stated: “The Paris conference next December will for the first time in years raise hopes of a climate agreement in which all the different countries, including those in the developing world, can make a commitment to reducing their emissions. We can therefore get close to the target of limiting the increase in the planet's temperature levels. This is what the experts are telling us and this is the only way of remaining at a manageable temperature level”.
According to the most recent analysis by the “Climate Action Tracker”, the G-7 and EU together account for around 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of global GDP and have only “made a small step in the right direction of the 2°C target”. Their combined intended contributions for 2025 and 2030 will be between 20 to 30% off-target, and current policies will only lead to stabilising their emissions by 2030. It will also be necessary to increase their efforts to reduce emissions before 2020, so that they can facilitate a swift reduction in emissions from then on.
On Thursday, representatives from the Greens and G-7 country members called on heads of state and governments from the G-7 to: meet their commitments fully and do all they can to limit the rise in temperatures to a maximum of 2°C; commit to assuming their fair contribution in the US $100 billion a year promised for climate funding in 2020; support existing initiatives for creating a carbon pricing system that incorporates the real coal extraction and consumption costs; take action together to respect the commitment made by the G-7 in 2009 to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels.
The NGOs are concerned that although Germany is a leader in renewables, it will be put under pressure by Canada and Japan and agree to postpone the objective of getting rid of fossil fuels to 2100. Martin Kaiser from Greenpeace stated on 2 June: “If Angela Merkel does not want to go down in history as the 'Coal Chancellor', she has to use this opportunity to make the first step in the phase-out of coal in Germany ahead of the summit. This would enable her to convince Obama, together with his G7 colleagues, to make the transition to 100% renewable energy by mid-century”. (Aminata Niang)