Daily Yomiuri: G-8 environment ministers meeting starts in Kobe

Daily Yomiuri: G-8 environment ministers meeting starts in Kobe

A meeting of environment ministers from the Group of Eight nations kicked off Saturday in Kobe to discuss biodiversity, waste management and climate change.

A major aim of the Group of Eight Environment Ministers Meeting is to pave the way to creating an international framework for greenhouse gas reduction after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita encouraged his G-8 counterparts as well as ministers from 10 other nations, including China, India and South Korea, and international organizations attending to share opinions on how to fight global warming.

"Although this meeting isn't a place to negotiate or make commitments, I'd like to have frank discussions with other ministers who are also aiming to protect the global environment for the world's people," Kamoshita said during the opening ceremony at a Kobe hotel.

"It's a virtue of this meeting that it invited 10 emerging and developing nations, and international organizations concerned with environmental issues as well as nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations and business and labor representatives because we should listen to every stakeholder to resolve the issues," he said.

The three-day meeting aims to lay the groundwork for the G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July, in which climate change will be a major topic.

During the meeting, environment ministers of G-8 member states--Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States--as well as the European Commission and 10 other nations, including major greenhouse emitters, will discuss global warming, biodiversity and the three R's--reduce, reuse and recycle.

Kiyoshi Kurokawa, professor at National Institute of Policy Studies and also science adviser to the Cabinet, said in a keynote speech given at the opening ceremony, "How to engage in the transition to a low-carbon society consistent with the rapidly growing economies in various parts of the world is a major issue because we may not have time left to leave the planet to our future generations."

As the chair nation, Japan is considering cutting domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050, a reduction equal to that of the European Union. Concerning the long-term target, the G-8 nations have agreed to seriously consider halving global emissions by 2050.

In an attempt to push forward talks on setting the midcentury target, Japan invited the 10 emerging nations, including China, one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters and which has not yet set a concrete target, to the meeting.

(May. 25, 2008)

23 May 2008 12:00:22 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

"I think the private sector is crying out for an investment perspective," he said of measures to slow warming that the U.N. Climate Panel says is likely to bring more food shortages, melt glaciers, spread disease and raise world sea levels.

EU GOAL

Bush laid out a policy last month that would let U.S. emissions keep rising to a peak in 2025. All other G8 nations are part of the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks an overall emissions cut of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Bush will step down in January 2009. Candidates in the U.S. presidential election -- Republican John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- favour earlier caps.

"Reading the reports (of the U.N. Climate Panel), that's certainly the direction in which things need to go," he said.

Almost 200 countries agreed at a U.N. conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December to negotiate a new deal by the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.