In the year since your last meeting, there
has been a remarkable and important shift in the global public perception
and attitude towards climate change. This shift presents us with an unparalleled
opportunity to take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Simultaneously,
the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in its recent report concluded
that 30% of species face an increased risk of extinction if temperatures
rise by 2ºC. The Equator Initiative and Countdown 2010, as representatives
of over 250 organizations, building on the World Environment Day message
supported by the Convention on Biological Diversity and United Nations
Development Programme strongly request the Group of Eight, gathering
tomorrow in Heiligendamm to consider the following actions:
As the leaders
of the developed world, G8 countries pledged to contribute 0.7 per cent
of gross domestic product to official development assistance by 2015.
This amount must be allocated and spent on efforts to achieve the MDGs,
and will only be wholly effective if it is directed at environmentally
sustainable approaches to economic and social development. In
addition to reaching the 0.7 per cent ODA target, the Group of Eight
should provide the global leadership to finance climate change adaptation
and mitigation, and implement innovative financing mechanisms to direct
funds from carbon markets towards sustainable development in the world’s
poorest countries.
- The global effort to stabilize the earth’s climate requires
the global application of a number of approaches in parallel. We must
reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, industrial
and otherwise, through the legislation of strict energy efficiency
standards, the taxation of carbon emissions, active participation in
carbon credit trading schemes, and the innovation and application of
carbon neutral technologies. The world must also identify and protect
natural carbon sinks and learn more about the potential to sequester
carbon from the atmosphere. These factors must form the basis for a
post-Kyoto climate regime. We urge the G8 negotiators to adopt
a clear mandate to use the UNFCCC COP in Bali of this year to agree
on a formal negotiating mandate for a successor agreement to the Kyoto
Protocol by 2009, thus demonstrating leadership to the rest of the
world community.
- At the most basic level, climate protection and biodiversity conservation
must be integrated with development and economic growth. Active climate
policy offers the economic opportunities of innovation and technological
development and industrialized nations must take the lead. The Group
of Eight must champion sustainable consumption and production methods. We
call on the Group of Eight to lead the world in integrating biodiversity
and climate change concerns into all relevant sectors such as trade,
development, agriculture, finance and transport.
- Building on existing knowledge to inform future scenarios, we
must be vigilant to ensure that potential solutions, which reduce carbon
emissions from one source do not increase carbon emissions from another
source. Ineffective climate change mitigation has negative impacts
on biodiversity and exacerbates climate change. Solutions must be socially
and ethically sound. For example, biofuels are not a viable alternative
if they are produced from lands obtained through deforestation and
conversion to monoculture, especially from peatland
forests or from the traditional lands of indigenous peoples. It must
also be ensured that the market for biofuels does not threaten food
security. The Group of Eight should take the lead in establishing
the terms for the production and trade of ethical, environmentally,
socially, economically sustainable biofuels and consider establishing
a mechanism to provide concrete guidelines and recommendations.
- Development strategies must include incentives to maintain the intact
forests of the developing world as important stores for biodiversity
and natural sinks for carbon. With a reliable international market,
carbon finance for forest conservation and the restoration of degraded
lands could support livelihoods, reduce pressures on indigenous peoples,
and create biodiversity and other environmental assets. We
ask the Group of Eight to support an economically viable socially equitable
incentive scheme for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation
in order to ensure that the world’s poorest countries have reason
to safeguard their vast forest wealth in manner that benefits not
only the planet but also safeguards the rights and livelihoods of local
forest-dependant communities. Recognizing the impact that illegally
harvested timber has on forest loss and degradation and given the leadership
role the G8 has played in raising this issue we also ask the G8 to
undertake a review of national and international action to combat illegal
logging and to report back with recommended actions at the 2008 G8
Summit in Japan.
- Local and indigenous peoples live in direct contact with the environment
and have developed sustainable solutions to biodiversity conservation,
adaptation to climate change and poverty reduction over the long-term. The
Group of Eight must give weight to this source of traditional knowledge
by investing at the community-level to help poor countries respond
to development challenges and achieve the MDGs.
- The Potsdam Initiative – Biological Diversity 2010 adopted
by the G8+5 Environment Ministers provides ten priority actions which
should form the basis of future G8+5 discussions. We encourage Group
of Eight and in particular the Japanese G8 Presidency to take forward
these actions and refine them to concrete targets and outcomes.
The world possesses both the financial resources and technical
knowledge required to surmount the challenges of climate change and
biodiversity loss, success is only a question of political will, resource
allocation, and commitment. We are concerned with the wellbeing of
people and the environment worldwide and we urge the Group of Eight
to provide catalytic leadership in the form of concrete actions on
these crucial, interrelated, and timely issues.
*The Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings
together civil society, business, governments, and communities, with
support from the United Nations, to help build the capacity and raise
the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity.
Countdown 2010, hosted by the World
Conservation Union (IUCN), is a powerful network of active partners working
together towards the 2010 biodiversity target. Each partner commits additional
efforts to tackle the causes of biodiversity loss.
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