The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) issued a declaration today after its leaders met in Italy. There were no big surprises, as I predicted yesterday. (See last post below.) However, there was some potentially useful language regarding the role of the developing economies. “Developing countries among us will promptly undertake actions whose projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from business as usual in the mid-term, in the context of sustainable development, supported by financing, technology, and capacity-building.” (My emphasis.) CBS New reports here that developing nations have agreed that between now and December at the Copenhagen conference that they will negotiate concrete goals to reduce their own emissions by 2050.
The declaration also said that “…social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities in developing countries and that low-carbon development is indispensable to sustainable development.” That last bit seems to me to be the ticket. CBS also reports that President Obama underscored this theme by saying “There is no contradiction between environmentally sustainable growth and robust economic growth.” (See video from Reuters.) This is, of course, a consistent theme in the Stern Review and many other analyses.
Meanwhile, Gallup came out with some very interesting numbers yesterday on how the MEF countries’ publics view climate change. Most people in these countries, accounting for 80% of emissions, have a high level of awareness of the issue, and also have some degree of concern regarding the threat. As Gallup notes: “Majorities of citizens in many of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters are aware of global warming or climate change, and many who are familiar with global warming believe it poses a serious threat to their families.”