Science Features

Can the G8 act as one on climate change?

Jun 24, 2008, 6:36 GMT

Brussels - When the leaders of the world's seven richest countries and Russia meet in Japan next month, it is anybody's guess whether they will be able to agree what to do about climate change. Activists from environment group Greenpeace paint the words 'Quit Coal' on the driveway of the Department of Energy in Taguig City, east of Manila, Philippines, 03 June 2008. EPA/ROLEX DELA PENA

Activists from environment group Greenpeace paint the words 'Quit Coal' on the driveway of the Department of Energy in Taguig City, east of Manila, Philippines, 03 June 2008. EPA/ROLEX DELA PENAAt present, diplomats around the world are debating whether, and how, they will be able to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change when it expires in 2012. The participation of the world's richest countries is seen as crucial to any deal. But the Group of Eight (G8), due to meet in Toyako on the Japanese island of Hokkaido on July 7-9, is bitterly divided. Four members - European Union heavyweights Germany, Britain, France and Italy - have already pledged to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent no matter what the world does, and 30 per cent if other major powers do the same. But the United States, which refused to ratify Kyoto out of fears that it could harm the US economy, insists that it will not sign up to any emissions-reduction deal which does not impose strict limits on rising powers - and potential rivals - China and India. Canada ratified Kyoto but has failed to cut emissions since. It is thought unlikely to join a future pact unless the US does the same. Japan has been quicker to move, promising on June 9 to launch an emissions-trading scheme and cut its emissions by up to 80 per cent before 2050. As the host country, it stands to gain considerable international credit if it can broker a G8 deal on a Kyoto successor. That imperative should line it up alongside the EU states, who have pushed hard for a deal, seeing their unprecedented pledge on emissions cuts as proof of moral leadership on the issue. But the pledge may not carry all the weight that EU leaders hoped. The most recent figures from the EU's emissions-monitoring scheme, released on April 2, showed that in 2007 the industrial plants and power stations of Germany and Britain not only failed to cut emissions: they boosted them, by 1.88 and 2.16 per cent respectively. France and Italy, the other EU members of the G8, only managed negligible cuts - 0.27 per cent and 0.47 per cent, respectively. That failure by Germany and Britain, in particular - two of the most vocal advocates for international deals to cut emissions - could well end up as their Achilles heel in climate talks. States such as the US, who question whether emissions cuts are compatible with economic growth, are likely to say that the figures prove their claims. Developing economies such as China and India already argue that it is unfair to ask them to make expensive changes to their industrial models if the West is not going to do the same. EU states are also debating how to protect their industries from competition in countries where emissions rules are less stringent. The failure of such key EU members to make any cuts at all could leave the plan open to accusations of simple protectionism. In the heated atmosphere - both literally and metaphorically - much will depend on Russia, as it did when Moscow's support tipped the balance to bring the Kyoto Protocol into belated effect in 2005. Some observers hope that Russia, whose emissions plunged in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet industrial base, will support an international deal based on reducing emissions to below 1990 levels, since this would allow it to claim that it has already hit its target and thus cash in on credits. But others warn that the resurgent state, whose booming economy relies on oil and gas exports, could say that its reviving industrial base should not be hampered by Western-imposed emissions caps. Hope remains, however. The Japan summit will both be the first for Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, who is anxious to portray himself as a statesman of world stature, and the last chance for US President George W Bush to overturn his reputation as a man who refused to act on climate change in his eight-year term of office. At this month's EU-US summit in Slovenia, Bush predicted there would be a climate deal before his term expires at the end of the year. Few observers took the pledge seriously. But if Bush and Medvedev can find common ground on the issue, the results of the Hokkaido meeting may yet be as important as those of Kyoto a decade before.