Prestigiacomo Introduces G8 Environment Ministers' Meeting in Syracuse
7/3/2009
The struggle against climate change and the preservation of biodiversity will be the two main issues on the agenda at the environment ministers' meeting due to be held in Syracuse from 22 to 24 April, Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said, introducing the agenda for the summit to her European counterparts in Brussels on 2 March. An informal preparatory meeting at expert level is on the slate for 9 March to fine-tune and map out the official agenda, which will be published almost immediately thereafter.
The goal of the Syracuse talks is to send out an important political message on biodiversity and to facilitate dialogue on the issue of climate change ahead of the Copenhagen conference in December of this year, where the debate is going to focus on the world's "post-Kyoto" setup.
The G8 member countries will be joined in Syracuse by the Czech Republic, which currently the European Union duty presidency, and by the European Commission. Representatives of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, Australia, the Republic of Korea and Egypt have also been invited to attend the talks, along with Denmark in its capacity as host to next December's UN climate conference. And several international organisations and representatives of civil society will also be attending the meeting.
The meeting's first two working sessions will be devoted to climate change. The debate on the first day of the talks will be focusing on the opportunities offered by new technologies to foster economic recovery. Also, on the basis of a commitment that emerged in the course of last year's G8 Summit in Toyako, the discussion is going to focus on how to promote clean energy technology in order to address the dual challenge of climate change and energy security.
Talks on the second day of the meeting in Syracuse will be devoted to exploring the various "post-Kyoto" options, ahead of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. The environment ministers will be discussing ways of reconciling financial commitment to market stabilisation with the investment programmes required to cut emissions. And finally, the third session will be devoted to the new prospects of biodiversity ahead of International Year of Biodiversity in 2010.
The environment ministers' meeting in Syracuse from 22 to 24 April is the fourth of the ministerial meetings on the agenda between 1 January and the final Summit on the island of La Maddalena, on the slate for 8 to 10 July. It will be preceded by a forum at the technical level on low carbon content technologies, which will be held in Trieste from 3 to 5 April 2009.
