The G8 and climate change

A modest step

World leaders aspire to limit climate change, but they offer few details of how to do so

SCEPTICS could refer to an old joke about a music lover who would do anything to play the violin—except practice. The countries that emit 80% of the world’s heat-trapping gases, gathered at the Group of Eight (G8) meeting in the earthquake-stricken city of L’Aquila, in Italy, agreed on a goal this week. But they failed to say how they intended to achieve it.

The United States, Canada, Japan and Russia for the first time have put their names to a G8 declaration endorsing a position on the climate already taken by the European Union. This sets out that global temperatures, which already rose by 0.7ºC in the 20th century, should not be allowed to rise by more than 2ºC compared with pre-industrial levels. In addition, eight other countries, broadly representing the developing world at the conference, signed up to the target.

As America’s President Barack Obama observed, getting any agreement among so many countries with different interests is no small achievement. The declarations in L’Aquila thus constitute a useful step along the road to a credible agreement at the United Nation’s summit on global warming in Copenhagen in December. It is particularly notable that China, now the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, agreed to the 2ºC objective. Environmental lobbyists suggest that, in the days before the conference, officials in Beijing had been holding to a target of 2.3—2.6ºC.

But hitting the target will be much harder than agreeing on it. The G8 nations also committed themselves to reducing their carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050 (as part of a plan to halve those of the entire planet by mid-century). That is conveniently beyond the life expectancy of most of the leaders at L’Aquila. And to the disappointment of the greens such as the UN’s secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the rich states’ undertaking did not specify any short- or medium-term goals on cutting emissions, over which their leaders could have more control.

Even during the conference, moreover, there was some wriggling on the 2050 objective. A Russian official declared that, for Moscow, it was unacceptable. Canada’s environment minister, Jim Prentice, blithely remarked that it fitted well with the pathway that Canada is on, which is to reduce emissions by mid-century “by as much as 60% to 70%”. The 80% figure is an aggregate, allowing individual countries to fall short of the objective, but only on the questionable assumption that others will exceed it.

As expected, the G8’s guests from the developing world did not commit themselves to any target on carbon. The negotiations ahead of Copenhagen will deal with more than emissions, for example with considerations of how to help the countries most vulnerable to more temperature rises. There will also be proposals to transfer technology and cash from richer to poorer countries, to help the latter cut their reliance on carbon.

China, India and the rest will not put a figure to their own emissions reductions until they secure concessions in all these areas. In one, the conference showed some progress. The statement on Thursday July 9th included a commitment to double public investment in the research and development of climate-friendly technologies by 2015. The leaders of all the countries present, including the developing ones, will see what funds could be raised back home, to this end. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, has proposed a $100 billion kitty, but some poorer countries are lobbying for much more than that.

Doling out cash alone will not stop climate change. Nor, as Mr Obama said, should anyone “expect to solve the problem in one meeting”. But the talks in L’Aquila at least suggest some prospect for progress during the complicated bargaining and trade-offs ahead of the Copenhagen meeting, which is likely to be at least as contentious, and complex, as the Kyoto gathering in 1997.