Developed and developing nations have agreed that global temperatures should not rise more than 2 Centrigrades above 1900 levels, a G8 summit declaration says.
That is the level above which, the UN says, the Earths climate system would become dangerously unstable.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the G8 had not done enough and should also set 2020 targets. He said that while the G8s Wednesday agreement was welcome, its leaders also needed to establish a strong and ambitious mid-term target for emissions cuts.
India and China resisted a push from the G8 developed nations to set a target of reducing emissions by an overall average of 50 per cent by 2050.
Leaders must “fight the temptation towards cynicism”, US President Barack Obama said, calling climate change the defining challenge of his generation and acknowledging that the US had a much higher per capita carbon footprint.
However, Ed Miliband, UK secretary of state for energy and climate, said the FT that a pledge by developed nations to limit global warming to less than 2 Centrigrades “significantly increases the chances of success at Copenhagen” in December.
Leaders of the G8 club of rich countries were joined on Friday morning by heads of African governments and international institutions to finalize a multi-billion dollar food security fund for agriculture.
The final day of the three-day G8 summit in L’Aquila, central Italy, concluded with a declaration on food security and pledges totaling some 15 billion US dollar over three years.
Aid organisations will be carefully scrutinizing the pledges to make sure that the funding represents new money and has not been stripped from existing budgets elsewhere.
Also to be hammered out is what agency or agencies will administer the trust fund. The World Bank is a prime candidate.
Meanwhile, leaders of rich and developing nations want to finally seal a long-delayed world trade deal next year and head off trade wars that could hit world economies as they struggle to emerge from recession, according to a draft of a joint declaration.
‘We reaffirm our commitment to maintain and promote open markets and reject all protectionist measures in trade and investment”, according to a draft of the joint statement signed by 17 nations, including the G8 and five key emerging market economies.
The leaders asked trade ministers to meet prior to the G20 meeting of developing and rich countries in September in Pittsburgh, according to the draft.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
