Finance, climate chiefs to meet in Poland on global warming

POZNAN, Poland, Dec. 7 Kyodo - Finance and environment ministers from around the world will gather in Poland this week to discuss measures to address climate change, with mounting concern that the financial crisis could derail efforts by governments and industry to
fight global warming.
Finance ministers and officials from about 40 countries will hold a two-day
meeting from Monday in Warsaw to study fiscal and non-budgetary instruments to
help countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost energy efficiency,
according to delegates.
Top officials from economies such as Japan, the United States, Brazil, India
and the European Union are also expected to consider ways to develop carbon
markets through increased fund flows, a move that would give the private sector
bigger incentives to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
gases.
The officials will meet on the sidelines of two-week U.N. climate change talks
in Poznan, which will culminate in a two-day environment ministers' meeting
from Thursday in the western Polish city.
The meeting of environment ministers and officials from about 190 countries
will focus on ways to craft a successor treaty to the carbon-capping Kyoto
Protocol by the planned deadline of December next year.
''Although we are in the midst of the financial crisis, I think it will be
important to issue a powerful political message that we are determined to
accelerate negotiations and to tackle global warming by acting together,''
Japanese Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito said Friday in Tokyo.
Saito told reporters that Japan wants all parties at the 14th Session of the
Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to
adopt a target of reducing emissions by half by 2050, as agreed by the Group of
Eight leaders during their July summit in Toyako, Hokkaido.
Saito, who plans to attend the Poznan talks, said he will also call for the
involvement of ''all major emitting countries,'' such as the United States,
China and India, in a new climate pact to make it effective in reining in
global emissions.
''I believe developed countries need to show that they have an ambitious
package to draw all major emitters into a new climate deal,'' he said. ''The
package would include technology transfers and financial assistance (to help
developing countries curb emissions and adapt to climate change) and
medium-term emissions reduction targets for developed nations'' for 2020 or
2030.
Japan's call for all parties to share the mid-century target is likely to draw
opposition from developing countries, which insist that rich countries should
first commit to slashing emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020,
a range advocated by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Japan has pledged to reduce its emissions by 60-80 percent from current levels
by 2050. But the government has stopped short of unveiling a reduction target
for 2020 or 2030, saying it will announce one ''at an appropriate time next
year.''
Critics argue that the Kyoto accord, which will expire in 2012, is ineffective
as it covers only 30 percent of the world's emissions and fails to include the
United States and China -- the world's biggest emitters -- as well as other
major emerging economies that will produce the bulk of the increase in
emissions in the coming decades.
==Kyodo