Blair and Obama call for G8 climate talk breakthrough

Tony Blair has today called on world leaders to accelerate the rollout of policies that promote energy efficiency and forest protection as the most effective means of cutting carbon emissions.

Speaking at the launch of a new report from The Climate Group, the green lobby group backed by the former prime minister, Blair said that leaders gathering for the Major Economies Forum in Italy this week should commit to immediate action.

The report, Technology for a Low Carbon Future, concludes that 70 per cent of the global emission reductions required by 2020 can be achieved through investment in existing energy efficient lighting, building and transport technologies, as well as improvements in forest protection.

It argues that a short-term focus on energy efficiency can provide the breathing space necessary to develop the renewable energy, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage technologies that can be deployed post-2020 to help ensure global emissions fall 50 per cent by 2050.

"This report shows how major reductions, even by 2020, are achievable if we focus action on certain key technologies, deploy policies that have been proven to work, and invest now for the development of those future technologies that will take time to mature," said Blair.

The report also notes that, while the expansion of cap-and-trade and other carbon-pricing mechanisms is welcome, simpler policies are likely to prove more effective in the short term.

It argues for the wider rollout of tried-and-tested standards governing the efficiency of industrial equipment, vehicles, buildings, appliances and fuel, as well as binding targets for renewable energy use, and the expansion of deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) policies.

The report comes at a critical time for the UN-backed negotiations to agree a successor to the Kyoto Accord at a meeting in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

President Obama is expected to try and reinvigorate the stalled negotiating progress at the meeting in L’Aquila, where he has requested to chair a key session on climate change.

According to a draft communiqué, the US is set to drop its long-standing opposition to a formal climate-change target, and support a goal of limiting temperature rises to two degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Speculation is mounting that it could also agree to an accompanying target to cut emissions from developed nations by 80 per cent by the same date.

However, the president's famed powers of persuasion will face a severe test after the Indian government last week ruled out signing up to formal emission targets.

Obama is also travelling to Moscow ahead of the talks following a series of reports that the Kremlin remains highly sceptical about signing up to any demanding emission targets.

Meanwhile, UK prime minister Gordon Brown is to seek support for his proposal for a £100bn-a-year climate-change fund for the developing world that would help poorer nations pay for low-carbon technologies.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Mike Childs, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said that while the talk of formal targets for 2050 was welcome, it remained "meaningless" without shorter-term targets.

"Businesses look to a short- and medium-term planning horizon," he explained. "They want to know what will be happening in 2020 and while we expect a step forward at the G8, we are still a long way from getting that clarity."

"We'll get this great fanfare at the end of the meeting saying a 2050 target has been agreed, but it remains meaningless without targets for 2020," he added.