PM hails G8 climate change step

12 April 2012

Prime Minister Tony Blair has hailed a G8 deal on climate change as "a major, major step forward".

At his last summit before leaving No 10, Mr Blair said the agreement for a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions - with a view to halving them by 2050 - would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Leaders of the G8 nations - the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan - agreed at their summit in the German coastal town of Heiligendamm that harmful greenhouse gas emissions should stop rising "followed by substantial global emissions reductions".

And the leaders said there should be a "global goal for emissions reductions" and in setting that figure they would "consider seriously" the decisions made by EU countries.

Mr Blair told reporters there is now agreement. "The important thing is we now have an agreement - one; that we need a new worldwide agreement on climate change," he said.

"Two; that at the heart of that should be a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

"Three; in the process that will then work out what that cut in emissions should be there will be serious consideration given specifically to the goal of halving emissions by 2050.

"This is an agreement in which we want all the major countries to be involved including America, China, India and others - the developed and the developing world."

The Prime Minister, speaking after bilateral talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, continued: "The possibility is here, therefore, for the first time to get a global deal on climate change with substantial cuts in emissions with everyone in the deal - which is the only way we are going to get the deal we need.

"This is a major, major step forward. There's now the recognition that we do need a global deal with everyone in it."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in