Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, has urged the industrialized nations to call his nation's "bluff" and commit to deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. If the richer nations were to adopt the goal of cutting emissions by 40 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2020, "that’s a game changer,” he said. “It would be very difficult for me, as an Indian minister, not to respond if developed countries accept this proposal. The fat would be in the fire, our bluff would be called.”

The Chinese National People's Congress is considering a draft resolution on climate change that would, according to He Jiankun of the national expert commission on climate change, commit China to "lean forward to work against rampant emissions and, thus, global warming." China will "do its best with utmost sincerity" to push for success at the critical climate negotiations in Copenhagen later this year, Xie Zhendua, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Council, told the legislature.

"You don't shift significant billions of dollars of investment on the basis of what's likely to happen," said Barry Harris of New Zealand dairy exporter Fonterra, commenting on continued uncertainty regarding emissions trading schemes for New Zealand and Australia. "The financial consequences of reacting to the wrong signals are absolutely massive."

While both New Zealand and Australia have trading schemes on the drawing board, the incoming government in New Zealand has shelved existing plans pending a review and the Australian government faces difficulties negotiating legislation through parliament. Harmonization between the two schemes is, nevertheless, under discussion. "We are doing the work to explore options for harmonization," reported Penny Wong, Australian climate minister. "As a matter of principle the schemes are not required to be identical for us to link, but we do need to look at how best to approach."

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has given his backing to the call for atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to be kept below 350 parts per million by volume (ppmv). Both the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries bloc have adopted the 350ppmv target, along with a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius on the rise in global temperature.

"As chairman of the IPCC I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations," Pachauri told AFP. "But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target." The G8 group of industrialized nations have agreed that a threshold of two degrees warming should not be crossed.