World’s top polluters in Japan amid Blair push

JAPAN: The world’s top 20 polluters gathered here Friday amid hopes that their talks can help break a deadlock and add momentum to negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair, who launched the so-called Group of 20 (G20) initiative on global warming in 2005, was in Japan as the head of a new team of international experts tasked with securing a climate deal.

Blair’s team, backed by the United States and Europe, will issue reports on the remaining differences among major countries ahead of a UN-backed goal to seal a post-Kyoto deal by the end of 2009.

“There is a deadlock. Everyone is agreed where we want to get to, but unless you agree on the framework for getting there, you are left with a process and not a result,” Blair told The Guardian newspaper in London before heading to Japan.

The United States has resisted EU-led calls for binding international goals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for warming that could have catastrophic consequences for the planet in coming decades.

Makuhari, Friday, AFP