Former British prime minister Tony Blair has urged the Group
of Eight rich nations to agree to a global goal of halving
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, despite signs that top carbon
emitter - US - would not back the target.
"What we should do this year is to establish the workplan
necessary so that we can get an interim target next year that
is realistic" - Blair told a news conference. "For this year's
Japan G8, the essential thing is - get the global 2050 target
agreed and then get the elements that will go into the package
for next year."
Blair, who is in Tokyo to present a report by the non-profit
Climate Group, said that an agreement at the G8 summit
in Hokkaido, in northern Japan - from July 7-9 - would be
key to kick-starting discussions for an interim emissions
reduction target next year.
Pressure is mounting from environmentalists for the G8 to
come up with medium-term targets, even before 2050. However,
a wide gulf exists within the group and between richer and
poorer nations over how to share the burden of fighting climate
change, which many experts link to droughts and changing weather
patterns and expect to bring rising sea levels.
Japan has yet to persuade the United States to agree to the
mid-century goal, a Japanese government source said, re-igniting
doubts as to how far the G8 will be able to go beyond its
agreement last year to "seriously consider" the goal.
Tokyo wants the G8 meeting and an expanded meeting with eight
other major economies - including China - to build momentum
for UN-led talks on a climate framework to succeed the Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The Kyoto pact's first phase obliges many industrialised
nations to curb emissions between 2008-12 and the aim for
the next stage is to bind all nations to reductions.
Part of the solution to cutting future emissions would be
a renaissance in nuclear power, Blair said, although he noted
that the world's long aversion to nuclear energy meant technology
was not readily available.
"There is going to be a renaissance in nuclear power, partly
to do for reasons with climate change and partly to do for
reasons with energy security" - he told reporters.
"But here's the problem - because of the way we've turned
away from nuclear energy in the past couple of decades, we've
got a situation where, frankly, we don't have the expertise
to develop nuclear power in the way that it needs to and at
the speed we need to."
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