Kate Rooth

Dear Prime Minister Fukuda: commitment from world leaders at the G8 Summit is not enough

Yesterday marked the beginning of the G8 Summit in Hokkaido Japan and already climate negotiations are underway. At last years summit, leaders from the eight leading industrial nations pledged to consider a 2050 target for curbing world emissions.

Climatologist James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute and National Academy of Sciences member, wrote to Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, this years G8 Summit host, urging him to initiate a serious discussion on an approach to climate change (pdf.):

“This is a situation that cries out for leadership. As the Group of Eight meets in Hokkaido the most important thing that the leaders could do is recognize and discuss the need for a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants in their countries. If these countries, the ones most responsible for the excess CO2 in the air today, would take that step, it would be a huge step for mankind and nature.”

These words fell upon deaf ears as earlier this morning Fukuda announced that world leaders would endorse halving emissions by 2050 but made no commitments to a baseline for these goals or a plan to meet them. Concerned citizens, environmental leaders and scientists agree that this is not enough. In his letter, Hansen states:

A strategy based on 20%, 50%, or 80% CO2 emission reduction is doomed to failure, because it would allow substantial coal emissions to continue indefinitely. Once CO2 emissions are in the air, they cannot be retrieved. The only practical solution is to avoid coal emissions.

He continued by saying:

“Coal is central to the solution of the climate problem. Coal is not only the main cause of excess CO2 in the air today; it has the greatest potential for future emissions” (see figure below).
Image: Contribution of fossil fuels and land use to past CO2 emissions and remaining reserves

World leaders may not have listened to his initial advice but perhaps they will consider his second:

“If the leaders find that the concept of phasing out all emissions from coal, and taking measures to ensure that unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground or used only with zero-carbon emissions, is too inconvenient, then, in that case, they could instead spend a small amount of time composing a letter to be left for future generations.

 

This letter should explain that the leaders realized their failure to take these actions would cause our descendants to inherit a planet with a warming ocean, disintegrating ice sheets, rising sea level, increasing climate extremes, and vanishing species, but it would have been too much trouble to make changes to our energy systems and to oppose the business interests who insisted on burning every last bit of fossil fuels. By composing this letter the leaders will at least achieve an accurate view of their place in history.”


We cannot sit and wait while our leaders continue to make weak, ambiguous commitments to tackling climate change.

Organized citizens around the world are taking action against new coal plants, and we must all do our part to demand to our leadership that we will not be satisfied until there is a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants and real commitments to curbing emissions are made.

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