來源網址： http://tinyurl.com/lxtfez
The Canberra Times- G8 agrees to 80pc gas cut 2009.07.10
BY CATHY ALEXANDER AND BELINDA TASKER
VIDEO: Emerging powers on climate
http://tinyurl.com/ll9cs6
The world's richest economies have called on all developed countries to slash
greenhouse gas emissions, putting pressure on Australia to beef up its target.
Group of Eight leaders meeting in Italy have agreed that developed countries
should cut emissions by 80per cent by 2050.
Australia has only promised to cut its emissions by 60per cent by then.
United States President Barack Obama cleared the way for what British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown called an ''historic agreement'' by signing the US up
to the firm emissions target for the first time, a complete contrast to the
intransigence of his predecessor, George W.Bush.
The G8 move is designed to revitalise United Nations-led talks on a global
''son of Kyoto'' agreement, which reach a climax in Copenhagen in December.
The call to arms on climate came ahead of broader talks on the global economy.
Mr Obama is trying to persuade nine non-G8 nations, including China and
India, to ''jump together'' with the G8 countries by agreeing to halve their
emissions by 2050.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who will be one of the 17 world leaders at the
Major Economies Forum in Italy, called for an ''ambitious outcome'' on
climate at the forum.
''The clock is ticking, time is running out,'' Mr Rudd said.
He noted there were just 150 days to go until negotiations on the new global
climate pact due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.
He reiterated a new climate deal would not be worked out at the Italian
forum, and that negotiations posed a huge challenge.
Mr Rudd focused on Australia's 2020 target for greenhouse gases, which is
more in line with what the G8 wants than the 2050 target.
The G8 call for an 80per cent cut appears to leave Australia behind, but
acting Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the 60 per cent target was
''stacking up pretty well in the international arena at the moment.'' The
Government could seek to lift that target but would take it to an election
first, he said.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who is in Italy for the talks, welcomed
the G8's call for global warming to be restrained to 2degrees. The G8 says to
achieve that, developed nations must cut emissions by 80per cent.
But Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said Australia's targets were not good
enough to hold warming to 2degrees and should be lifted. The targets
including a 5 to 25per cent emissions cut by 2020 undermined the 2degree
goal, he said.
Climate experts say holding warming to 2degrees means aiming for an
atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases of 450 parts per million. For
Australia to play its part in a deal which achieves that, it must cut
emissions by at least 25per cent by 2020, and by 80per cent by 2050, they say.
Meanwhile, an Australian report that looks at the latest science on climate
change has warned it's worse than first thought. Will Steffen from the ANU
looked at what's happened since the world's scientists issued their last
United Nations update on global warming in 2007. ''The climate system appears
to be changing faster than earlier thought likely,'' Professor Steffen's
report found.
The report said critical issues for Australia included a possible sea level
rise of 80cm by 2100, more droughts, a general drying trend, and more
heatwaves, floods and bushfires. The Great Barrier Reef could suffer due to
an increasingly acidic and warm ocean.
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