[EGP] EGP PRESS RELEASE : EGP demands urgent action from G8 on Climate Change

05.06.2007

European Greens demand urgent action from G8 on Climate Change and combatting poverty in the developing world

Speaking on the eve of the G8 Summit being held in Heiligendamm,Germany from 6^th to 8^th June, the Spokespersons of the European Green Party today called on the G8 to commit to taking the measures urgently needed if the disastrous effects of climate change are to be avoided. The EGP Spokespersons also demanded that the G8 honours promises it made at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005 to double annual aid to the world’s poorest nations to 37.19 Billion Euros a year.

EGP Co-Spokesperson Ulrike Lunacek said: “We European Greens have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the G8, which is an exclusive organisation which acts in the interest of the World’s wealthiest nations, while taking decisions which often have a negative effect on the world’s poorest people. However, even those who are generally supportive of the G8 have to admit that there are two crucial requirements which the G8 must meet at the Heiligendamm Summit if it is to have any credibility. The first of these requirements is that it fulfils the promises it made in 2005 to double aid to the world’s poorest nations to 37.19 Billion Euros a year. The shameful reality is that instead of aid from the G7 countries rising (Russia is not included in these statistics), aid in 2006 actually fell for the first time since 1997. The G8 must act to show that its promises are worth the paper they are written on. The second requirement the G8 must fulfil is that the leaders of the world’s 8 wealthiest nations come to a meaningful agreement on the measures they will take to combat climate change.”

EGP Co-Spokesperson Philippe Lamberts went on to outline the measures that the G8 must commit to if it is serious about making an impact on climate change: “What we urgently need is a commitment to action from the G8, not, as president Bush proposed last week, an eighteen month delay in the hope that consensus can be reached. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in March that she would use the summit in Heiligendamm to try and persuade the world’s wealthiest nations to commit to a 30 % reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020, which all credible scientific analysis shows is the reduction needed to avoid disastrous climate change. It now seems likely that she will be unable to convince the US to commit to even a 20% reduction. If this proves to be the case, then Chancellor Merkel and other EU leaders must make a joint commitment to achieve a 30% reduction by 2020.Only such a commitment followed by action will ensure that rapidly developing countries like China, India and Brazil also meet their responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Both Spokespersons also said that the G8, along with all other industrialised nations, particularly those in the EU, had a moral responsibility to provide much more money to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to the harmful effects of climate change: “Various scientific reports, including one earlier this year from the IPCC, have shown that it is the worlds’ poorest people, and particularly women, who will suffer most from the effects of human-induced climate change. This is particularly unfair when one considers that is these people who are the least responsible for emissions and least prepared to deal with climatic shocks. That is why the G8 countries and other wealthy nations must pay a substantial part of the estimated 37 Billion Euros needed each year by developing countries if they are to adapt to the destructive effects of climate change. This money must be in addition to development aid.” Lunacek and Lamberts said.

The EGP Spokespersons also firmly rejected the violence that had occurred at the weekend’s demonstration in Rostock and supported the appeal of several NGOs and demonstration organisers calling on the “violent block” to keep away from the majority of peaceful demonstrators and to refrain from violence in the future.

Graham Burgess

Communications Officer

European Green Party

email:graham.burgess@europeangreens.org

Tel no: +32 2 626 0724

Mobile no: +32 477 902 023