Second Day of the G8 Environment Ministers' Meeting: Climate and Biodiversity
23/04/2009
After the opening session devoted to low toxic emission technologies, the themes of biodiversity and climate change were addressed on the second day of the G8 environment ministers' meeting in Syracuse.
"Combining climate change and biodiversity, as this G8 environment ministers' meeting is doing, is an important sign of the awareness that the quality of biodiversity in a region is precisely the thing that points to a balanced use of environmental resources," Maurizio Gubbiotti said in his speech. Gubbiotti, who is in charge of Italian environmentalist assocciation Legambiente's international department, went on to say that: "Climate change and the loss of biodiversity are extremely closely linked, and so urgent measures are needed to combat the former if we are to avoid dramatic consequences for the latter".
The figures, however, appear to point to a lack of sufficient information and of public involvement in the issue of biodiversity. The data disseminated at the conference shows that only 13% of Italians claim to know something about it, while the natural environment loses 240,000 hectares of land a year in our country alone.
One of the summit's stated goals is the approval of the Charter of Syracuse, a political declaration reiterating the international community's commitment to curbing the loss of biological diversity. This proposal has been favourably received by all of the environmentalist organisations, but they are calling for "specific, concrete measures; measures that can be tracked and measured".
In the view of Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo, who is chairing the summit, "countries and governments have a duty to attempt to depollute areas likely to jeopardise people's health" and so they should commit to technological reconversion, which is "necessary not only to improve the environment" but also to impart a fresh boost to industry and to competitiveness.
Joining her South African counterpart Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, Minister Prestigiacomo also discussed a framework agreement that Italy and South Africa have signed in the context of the G8 environment ministers' meeting. Ms. Prestigiacomo explained that "the agreement" provides for cooperation "on projects designed to promote energy efficiency and to cut CO2 emissions".
According to Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, "this G8 meeting has made progress compared to previous meetings". Ms. Hedegaard spoke of the need to "address three major challenges: the climate, energy, and the economy", going on to highlight the need to look at the three issues "with the same eyes, because resolving one of these crises helps to resolve the other two". Fielding questions from journalists on the sidelines of the meeting, Ms. Hedegaard had words of praise for the new international focus on environmental issues, also in relation to the signals coming from the United States.
In the United States' view, the goals to aim for are "clean energy and energy efficiency". "President Obama and his staff concur in considering that we can reach those goals and address the challenges", as US Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said in the course of the news conference, adding the rider that "everyone is going to have to play their part".
