Brussels, 24/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - Unable to convince the United States to match the ambition of the European Union on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in all industrialised countries by 2020, the G8 Environment meeting that ended in Syracuse, Italy, on Friday 24 April 2009 was able to slightly fill the gap that had emerged in the past between rich countries and the developing world.
The Obama Administration's target of reducing the United States' greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from the 2005 level is well below the 30% reduction target (on 1990 levels) that the EU wanted all industrialised countries to sign up to under a global agreement, but the manager of the US environment agency EPA, Lisa Jackson, is reported by AFP as relaying to partners a message of hope and change from President Barack Obama to reach common targets for the environment.
This meeting of the G8, attended by emerging economies China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa and Egypt was dominated by debate about climate change and protection of biodiversity, two issues that participants agreed should be put on an equal footing as priorities for the post-2012 global climate deal to be done in Copenhagen in December 2009. This inclusion of biodiversity on an equal footing with climate change was one of Brazil's demands and will be added to the Syracuse Charter to be unveiled at the end of the conference on Friday.
Preservation of biodiversity is now recognised as a moral and ecological imperative, commented Martin Bursik, the Czech environment minister and president-in-office of the EU's Environment Council. A conference on the protection of biodiversity beyond 2010 will open in Athens on Monday 27 April 2009 as a sign of the attention to the issue paid by the EU. Some 230 representatives of EU member states, NGOs, industry and United Nations' agencies have been invited to attend. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said that business as usual was no longer an option and the conference aims to stimulate work to halt the decline in biodiversity in Europe and everywhere else in the world.
Martin Bursik will be involved in international climate talks again next week at a climate and energy forum of major economies to be held in Washington, the United States, from Tuesday 28 April to Thursday 30 April, on the initiative of the US president, Barack Obama. Martin Bursik and Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish environment minister (for the upcoming Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU), will represent the EU at the forum, which will examine the structure of the new Copenhagen deal. The forum will be chaired by Todd Stern, the United States' government's special envoy on climate change, and Michael Froman, the deputy national security advisor at the White House with responsibility for global economic issues. (A.N/transl.fl)