On Thursday last week things were looking almost respectable. The G8 member countries had met in Italy and had agreed two key points:

1. To prevent average global temperatures rising beyond 2°C.
2. To reduce global emissions by 80% by 2050

Why is this an important step? Because for the first time, the USA has agreed to commit to targets that leading climate scientists believe to be the only way of avoiding runaway climate change. Targets it’s refused to accept before. Without the USA on board, as both a high polluter and formidable political influence, there could be little in the way of serious achievements at these climate talks.

So the turnaround is welcomed. But the agreement is not without its critics.

Firstly, the language of the deal is a little murky for our liking. Paragraph 65 says "We also support a goal of developed countries reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in aggregate by 80 per cent or more by 2050 compared to 1990 or more recent years”

Now, scientific consensus states that emissions should be reduced by 80% from 1990 levels, end of story. Not “or more recent years”. How did that slip in there? More recent years could mean 2009, and millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide more than 1990 levels!

Secondly, there were no indications of how these targets would be met, who would make them, and what would happen in between. It’s easy for politicians to sign a deal that says something must happen in 40 years, when they are long out of the picture. It’s much harder to make the important decisions of what we are going to do now.

Nevertheless, easy as it should be, it hasn’t happened until now. So we can look at this as progress of sorts. And at least politicians are now recognising the 2 degree threshold and 80% reduction necessity.

On Friday, things took a turn for the worse. The G8 committee invited representatives from five key developing countries to join the fray (the G13). The reason to get excited on Thursday was really in the United States’ turnaround under Obama’s steering. With the US on board, it was much more likely that the other key player as largest polluter in the world would join rank – China. The refusal of China to sign any climate agreement in the past has often been down to a stalemate with the US in a first-to-budge scenario. When the US made that step we all got a bit excited that China may now play ball.

Both China and India have made landmark steps by also agreeing that we should keep global temperature rises to a 2°C maximum. But they’ve refused to sign up to any binding emissions reduction targets.

India has quite rightly pointed out that climate change is largely a result of the developed nations’ actions – we have an historical responsibility to clear up our mess. Not only that, but industrialised nations are financially capable of dealing with climate change, unlike the developing world.

This presents us with a problem. In 2008, for the first time, the developing world matched the industrialised nations in emissions, and we now stand at around 50-50. China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest polluter. Without these countries support, it will be difficult to force through a meaningful replacement for the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen this December.

Having said this, despite China refusing to sign documents, it does have its own agenda, at least when it comes to renewable energy. It has hugely ambitious plans to de-carbonise its energy grid, and quickly. As previous blogs have described, the Chinese government intends to be generating a fifth of its energy from renewables by 2020. When you consider the size of China this makes a mockery of the UK’s slow progress. China’s plan includes a huge 100GW increase in wind power. To put this in perspective, at the end of 2008, there was 120GW of wind power world wide!

Also, neither China or India have closed the door on conversation. They are essentially saying “you show us that growth is compatible with sustainability and we will be onside.” This shifts the ball back into the G8’s court quite nicely. If we can show the capabilities of sustainable development the dialogue can progress.

As such a huge proportion of our goods come from these two countries, this is a fair call. It highlights the hypocrisy in moving our production industries to Asia, and then criticising it for having high emissions. The emissions haven't gone, they have just gone somewhere else.

It also reminds us about the power of the consumer. As production countries India and China are highly aware of consumer trends. If low carbon and environmentally conscious products are being sought after in the West, production countries will react to the demand. When you shop, you send messages – make sure these messages are the right ones.

So the cards are on the table. The US and Europe are in. The China and India are yet to be convinced. It is up to Europe and the US to form a powerful and persuasive allegiance now and work out a deal that will bring China, India and other developing nations into the arena so we can get a concrete agreement signed at Copenhagen.

Green Energy Republic

Subscribe in a reader