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16 Mar 05 Global Warming Threat Central To Policy - Britain Story by Jeremy Lovell LONDON - Britain told the world's biggest polluters including the United States on Tuesday that only by placing the environment at the heart of economic policy could they prevent a crisis caused by global warming. Britain hosted a two-day brainstorming on climate change by ministers and senior officials from 20 countries in the run-up to a July meeting of the eight most industrialised nations - the G8 group - currently led by London. The need for action to avert a looming climate catastrophe was rammed home by graphic images of melting glaciers and makeshift sea defences displayed at the venue of the meeting. "We must make climate stability, energy investment and energy security central to economic policies," British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown told the meeting. "International cooperation is again the only way forward." Brown said he would study the costs and feasibility of so-called carbon sequestration -- the capture and burial deep underground of millions of tonnes of the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel burning power stations. The Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases came into force in February but is still shunned by the world's biggest emitter, the United States, and puts scant limits on China as it rises fast up the pollution ranks. Senior officials from both countries attended the London meeting, aiming to discuss ways to achieve the environmental Holy Grail of sustainably growing low carbon economies. The U.S delegate made it clear energy efficiency, not a radical shift to a low carbon economy, should be the key. "We are now trying to find a portfolio in which three words are important, technology, technology, technology," US President George W. Bush's chief environment adviser James L. Connaughton said before the meeting. RICH NATION HYPOCRISY As about 30 people banged pots and pans in the street outside to protest at what they said was rich nation hypocrisy, speakers stressed the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy efficiency and switch to renewable resources. And that did not just mean wind and wave power. Nuclear power -- anathema to the green lobby -- had to remain an option. "We will keep the nuclear option open," British Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said, noting that while it was a low carbon technology there were major questions over its true costs and the problem of nuclear waste storage. Liu Jiang, leading the Chinese delegation, went even further stressing that nuclear power was clean and saying that China was embarking on a major investment programme in nuclear reactors to reduce its massive dependence on burning coal. He also urged the rich, developed world which owns most of the cutting edge green technology to make it more readily and cheaply available to developing countries as they try to climb the steep slope out of poverty. Jacques Dubois, chairman of the giant SwissRe reinsurance company that underwrites insurers' risks, said his experts considered the risks to people and property from climate change to be a major problem for the future. The London meeting is part of Britain's agenda for the G8, which Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed will make progress on climate change and African development. The two sensitive issues will come together at the G8 summit near the Scottish town of Gleneagles in July. PlanetArk 16 Mar 05 Images Stress Climate Action As Ministers Meet Story by Jeremy Lovell LONDON - Environment and energy ministers from some of the world's biggest polluters - including the United States - met on Tuesday spurred on by stark images of the ravages of global warming. But as the ministers and officials from 20 nations met for what the British organisers said was a two-day information swap, the United States made it clear energy efficiency, not a radical shift to a low carbon economy, should be the key. "We are now trying to find a portfolio in which three words are important, technology, technology, technology," US President George W. Bush's chief environment adviser James L. Connaughton told BBC radio. The Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases came into force in February but is still shunned by the world's biggest emitter, the United States, and puts scant limits on China as it rises fast up the pollution ranks. Senior officials from both countries are at the London meeting, whose main goal is how to achieve the environmental Holy Grail of sustainably growing non-polluting economies. Liu Jiang, leading the Chinese delegation, said China would invest heavily in nuclear technology in order to reduce its heavy reliance on major polluter coal. He urged developed nations, which had a virtual monopoly on green technology, to make it more readily available. KILIMANJARO Focusing their minds will be photos that include Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro burned almost bare of its 11,000-year-old icecap by global warming, and coastal defences in the Marshall Islands threatened with swamping from rising sea levels. The London meeting is part of the agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations which Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed will make progress on climate change and African development. "Today at the start of the 21st century, co-operation internationally is the only way forward ... not just for this generation but for generations to come," British finance minister Gordon Brown told the meeting. A senior official at Britain's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is co-organising the unique meeting, said the aim was to find common ground between developed and developing nations. "This is a chance for people to get together and by not forcing them to negotiate a very concrete outcome ... allow them to explore common interests," she said. "There are plenty of technologies out there which we can deploy which can help ... straight away. We know that energy efficiency can already deliver huge carbon savings at a net benefit to our society," she told Reuters. But environment pressure group Greenpeace said the issue was a minefield. "It is very sensitive given that the developing countries are trying to climb the development curve and the developed countries must not be seen to be doing anything to hold them back," a spokeswoman told Reuters. British think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research has proposed a multi-tiered approach, calling for progressively deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by rich nations allied with more flexible commitments from the developing world. These should be made as part of efforts to take Kyoto -- with the United States and Australia aboard in some form -- beyond the end of its first phase in 2012, it said, proposing a phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries. links Related articles on Global issues: global warming issues, policies |
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