UNDP: Climate goal from G8 is 'insufficient'

By Sun Shangwu and Li Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-11 11:04

The 2050 climate goals proposed by G8 countries are "insufficient", Ajay Chhibber, United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) regional director of Asia and the Pacific, said in Beijing on Friday.

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The G8 leaders agreed at the annual summit in Italy's L'Aquila on Thursday to support a goal of cutting global emissions by 50 percent by 2050 and of reducing emissions in wealthy countries by 80 percent.

"The goal is good. But it didn't make clear how to get there in the more immediate future," Chhibber told China Daily. "We need more specific targets that lead up to that long-term goal."

The targets also failed to address the problem of how developing countries would get the funding and technologies to fight climate change, he said.

Leaders of the G8 industrialized countries - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States - and five leading emerging economies - India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa - met on Thursday to discuss the economy, climate change, trade and other international issues.

On Thursday, Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo said in L'Aquila that China has always attached great importance to climate change and has made constant achievements in energy saving and emissions reduction in the past years.

Dai, who attended the Major Economies Forum (MEF) on energy security and climate change on behalf of President Hu Jintao, said China is the first developing country to launch a national plan for coping with climate change.

In the plan, China has set a goal of cutting energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by some 20 percent from 2005 to 2010. China has also agreed to reduce emissions of its main pollutants by 10 percent. Other goals are to raise the forest coverage rate from 18 percent to 20 percent, and to increase the proportion of renewable energies in primary energy resources from 7.5 percent to 10 percent.

Of the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package announced by the Chinese government last year, 580 billion yuan would be used on climate change projects, Dai said at the forum. China's efforts in energy saving and emissions reduction have been successful in recent years, Dai said. According to incomplete statistics, energy consumption per unit of the GDP has decreased by 10.1 percent in the past three years.

Food assistance

Dai also urged the international community to increase assistance to Africa and other underdeveloped regions despite the financial turmoil.

"Assistance to Africa should grow, not drop, even though the international financial crisis is still widening and deepening," Dai said, while attending a meeting on food safety at the G8 summit.