G20 Finance Ministers meeting in St Andrews more crucial than ever - WWF Scotland
30 October 2009
In response to the European Council's announcement on climate change finance and emissions reduction targets today, Dr Richard Dixon, Director of WWF Scotland said:
"When the Finance Ministers of the 20 richest nations meet in St.Andrews in a week's time they will be discussing the financing of a new global deal on climate change but they will have only vague numbers on the table from Europe. A strong lead from Europe could really have pushed this along. This weak message is less than helpful.
“Despite the clear need for the EU to nail its colours to the mast regarding finance and emissions targets in advance of Copenhagen, today's outcome gives no clear figure for the European contribution to a global financial package. While European leaders have at least acknowledged that substantial sums of public money will be needed to help developing nations cope with the challenges of climate change, they have failed to set out Europe's share or to flesh out options for new, additional sources of finance - notably money drawn from the international aviation and shipping industries.
"It is equally frustrating that the increase in CO2 emission reduction targets is made conditional upon comparable efforts by other developed countries, rather than setting out a firm goal that the EU will stick to, and one which aligns with scientific opinion that industrialised nations must cut emissions by 40 per cent over 1990 levels by 2020 in order to stay below 2 degrees."
"In actual fact, in order to reach its current 20 per cent reduction pledge, Europe would have to slow the current pace of emissions reductions. What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world ahead of Copenhagen? Although the new long term goal of CO2 emission reductions in Europe of 80-95% by 2050 is encouraging, in order to meet that goal, we have to significantly pick up the pace."
The EU’s emphasis on the need for a legally binding agreement is precisely what is needed at present, and could give impetus to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Negotiation in Barcelona from 2-6 November as well as the EU-US summit on 3 November which also has climate change as one of the main items on its agenda.
Notes to Editors
[1] The G20 Finance Ministers will be in St.Andrews on the 6th and 7th November
[2] WWF Scotland is part of Stop Climate Chaos, an alliance of development, environment and civil society groups aiming for tougher action to reduce emissions - http://stopclimatechaosscotland.org
SCCS will be helping organise a Climate Change march in Glasgow on the 5th December, 2009.
