G8 climate goal: Leaders came back to earth. But what now?
“World leaders have come down to earth. We welcome them back here but why have they failed to tell us how they want to achieve what they promise,,” said Kim Carstensen, the leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.
“What are they going to do between now and 2020?” “If they don’t outline a path to reach the announced goal, the 2 degree statement will just join a long list of broken promises.”
So far the emission reduction pledges by individual industrialised countries do not add up to the level of action needed by 2020. The G8 has failed to use the opportunity to close that gap.
“It still seems as if the glaciers were moving quicker than the leaders,” Carstensen said.
WWF believes the group of industrialised countries should cut emissions by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. The US should take a comparable target, in nature, legal form and effort.
The global conservation organisation also asks developed countries to put forward a financial commitment of 160 billion USD a year for emission cuts and adaptation to climate impacts in the developing world.