Global leaders reach climate change agreement (original) (raw)

Leading world politicians and industrialists have reached a new, non-binding agreement at a meeting in the United States on tackling climate change.

Delegates agreed that developing countries would have to face targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions as well as rich countries.

The meeting in Washington of the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue also agreed that a limit should be decided for maximum acceptable carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the NBC reported. A global market should be formed to cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions, they also said.

The group is a discussion forum that is part of the British-led environmental group Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe). Globe was set up to encourage discussion of environmental issues between politicians and business leaders of the world's leading industrialised nations.

Although the talks were informal and did not represent official government policy, analysts said they provided a good indication of current political thinking on climate change.

The announcement will be seen as a coup for the British government because the discussion forum was launched at the House of Commons in February 2006 and its president, the MP Elliot Morley, is a special representative of the prime minister.

"I'm very happy with this outcome. This is the most detailed statement that has ever come out of a Globe meeting," Mr Morley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "It contains a number of broad principles that all the countries here are generally supportive of in terms of the way forward.

"I think it is a great step forward in terms of building confidence and it is a very clear message from legislators ... that we want to see progress."

The US senator Joe Lieberman told the forum yesterday that he believed the American government would introduce greenhouse gas-cutting laws in the near future "after many years of denial and inaction" on global warming.

"I want to make a prediction, which is that the Congress of the United States will enact a nationwide law mandating substantial reductions in greenhouse gases before the end of this Congress or early in the next," he said. This session of Congress ends late in 2008.

Senator John McCain said the push to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that spur global climate change was a national security issue, and that voluntary efforts to limit these emissions from vehicles, power plants and other human sources "will not change the status quo".

Jim Rogers, the chief of Duke Energy, applauded the mandatory cap-and-trade approach, and stressed that if the United States did not act soon to cut CO2 emissions, fast-developing China and India probably would not participate in any global emissions-cutting programme.

The forum's closing statement yesterday said man-made climate change was now "beyond doubt".

"Climate change is a global issue and there is an obligation on us all to take action, in line with our capabilities and historic responsibilities," Globe said in a statement.

The declaration carries no formal weight but it is considered to indicate a real change in mood of the world's most powerful nations.

The two-day meeting brought together politicians from countries including the Group of Eight rich nations plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

The former cabinet minister Stephen Byers took part in the forum along with the Virgin boss, Sir Richard Branson; the German chancellor, Angela Merkel; and Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank, who all gave keynote addresses.

The round of discussions aims to agree on a post-2012 climate change policy and present a consensus statement from the participants to the G8 heads of state in Japan next year.

Delegates want to improve understanding between politicians, business leaders and key organisations about different countries' priorities and how future deals can be reached.