Major Economies Meeting turns into Major Embarrassment Meeting for G8

The deadlock paralyzing today’s Major Economies Meeting (MEM) at the G8 summit in Japan is a result of missing G8 leadership on emission reductions. According to WWF, strong actions by emerging economies – which MEM host George W. Bush demands – can only be made on the basis of stronger commitments by industrialized nations. But G8 climate talks yesterday failed to signal bold action by rich nations.

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“The Major Economies Meeting has been a Major Embarrassment Meeting for G8 leaders who were coming to the table with too little while demanding too much from the developing countries,” said Kim Carstensen, Director WWF Global Climate Initiative. “The G8 are trying to fool the world in selling yesterday’s climate deal as progress. The ball remains in the G8 court and countries like India and China are rightly insisting on rich nations setting ambitious targets.”

The global conservation organisation welcomes the forward-leading interventions made by G5 countries in Sapporo yesterday, where Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa offered more domestic climate action. In turn they called on industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 per cent by 2050, insisting that mid-term targets in the range of 25-40 per cent by 2020 are necessary to trigger the energy revolution needed for reaching the long-term goal.

“While some rich nations get lost in tactics and seem to forget that the survival of people and nature crucially depends on their leadership, the developing world understands the magnitude of the threat and shows a strong will to act,” said Kim Carstensen. “Yesterday’s G5 announcement confirms the promising policy proposals made individually by these countries over recent weeks and months. Basically it’s an outstretched arm the industrialized countries cannot afford to ignore any longer.”

Despite little progress being made in Toyako, WWF urges the developing countries to keep up the helpful spirit and stick to their pro-active approach. UNFCCC meetings in Accra and Poznan later this year will have to accelerate the negotiations, while WWF calls for the MEM process to end. It has proven to be a complete waste of time, confusing rather than boosting the G8 process and the UNFCCC negotiations for a new climate treaty.

“The MEM process was made up by the US administration to distract public attention from the fact that President Bush’s climate politics suffer a disastrous lack of ambition,” added Carstensen. “Pointing the finger at emerging economies and blaming them for rising emissions won’t lead anywhere and is a shameless attempt to cloud the fact that a huge share of historic emissions is US-made and that US per capita emissions are among the highest in the world. MEM must end.”