| | |  Editorials | Environmental | June 2009 
Mexico Warns Recession Could Hurt Climate Goals
 Robert Campbell - Reuters
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June 23, 2009
 |  | The finger-pointing has gone on for more than a decade without humanity taking a
single step forward in the fight against climate change.
- President Felipe Calderon |  | | |
Jiutepec, Mexico - Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned governments on Monday against letting economic crisis derail steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions, saying failure to reach a deal would cost all nations dearly.
Speaking at a meeting of representatives of the world's biggest economies on how to tackle climate change, Calderon said the world was running out of time to take serious action to address the problem of global warming.
"The finger-pointing has gone on for more than a decade without humanity taking a single step forward in the fight against climate change," Calderon said at the meeting, in the town of Jiutepec in a picturesque valley near Mexico City.
He said the global recession risked making negotiations over emission-cutting goals even more complicated.
"If it is hard in boom times to agree to steps that have an economic cost, it will be even harder during a recession."
World leaders are due to sign a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December that will introduce binding emissions targets for fast-growing developing nations but rich and poor countries disagree on how deeply they should cut emissions.
Calderon said failure to reach an agreement would be more costly than going ahead with spending on climate goals.
"Climate change will cost Mexico more than 6 percent of our gross domestic product, which is many times more than we are investing in the fight against climate change," he said.
The world needs to cut emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided, according to the United Nations' Climate Panel.
China, India and other poorer countries are calling on the industrialized economies to agree to deep cuts of 40 percent or more in their emissions of greenhouse gases, saying rich countries need to take climate change more seriously before asking poor nations to shoulder some of the burden.
U.S. President Barack Obama's climate change plan would only scale back America's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of about 14 percent from 2007 levels.
"We have to be realistic, but positive," Mexican Environment Minister Juan Elvira told Reuters in an interview.
"There is a big difference from last year. The United States has now totally joined up and other countries are approaching the issue with more urgency to reach deals."
(Editing by Eric Walsh) |
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