Environment ministers from the world's richest countries and a clutch of fast-growing economies kicked off talks yesterday to try to inject fresh momentum into efforts to tackle climate change.
Japan, home to the landmark Kyoto Protocol, hopes to use its chairmanship of the G8 to give clearer direction to drafting a post-Kyoto treaty by the end of next year.
During three days of meetings in Kobe between the ministers, Japan hopes to shape the course of negotiations on a new climate treaty on curbing global warming, eyeing a breakthrough when it hosts the July 7 to July 9 G8 summit.
AGREEMENT
Ministers and officials from the G8 countries, along with countries including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Australia, South Korea and South Africa have gathered to try and pave the way to an agreement.
“We would like to send a message encouraging developing countries to easily tackle climate change,” Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita told reporters.
“We also want to clarify G8 countries’ stance on climate change during the environmental ministers’ meeting,” Kamoshita said.
Ahead of the meeting, international aid group Oxfam voiced concern that political momentum to tackle climate change appears to be flagging under Japan’s leadership.
“The endless debate about ‘considering’ reducing emissions is long gone. We need carbon cuts and we need this to happen now,” Oxfam campaigner Takumo Yamada said in a statement.
“Japan must overcome its internal squabbling and show the same leadership on this as the Germans did last year. Anything less would be a clear step backward in the fight to combat global warming,” Yamada said.
The Kyoto Protocol’s obligations for rich nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming expire at the end of 2012. UN scientists warn that climate change could put millions of people at risk by century’s end.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US agreed at the G8 summit last year in Germany to set a non-binding goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
However, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has warned wealthy countries are shirking their duty to take a strong lead in fighting global warming.
“We really need a push now from G8 countries to show leadership. I am not seeing this push yet,” the UN’s top climate official said in an interview in Paris on Friday.
Japan has sought wider support for its “sectoral” approach, in which each industry is judged by its efficiency.
The Japanese government believes this option is more attractive to developing countries and those reluctant to have a top-down target figure imposed on them.
However the EU has already introduced a “cap-and-trade” system, proposing ambitious global emission reductions of 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS