6 November 2006 - World leaders meeting to discuss climate change in Nairobi, Kenya, must agree a new UN treaty to set binding targets for a cut in global greenhouse emissions, said Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas.

Global emissions must be cut by 80 to 90 per cent in the next few decades if we are to stave off the worst effects of climate change, she warned as the Nairobi talks on the Kyoto Protocol began today.

WORLD leaders meeting to discuss climate change in Nairobi , Kenya , must agree a new UN treaty to set binding targets for a cut in global greenhouse emissions, said Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas.

Global emissions must be cut by 80 to 90 per cent in the next few decades if we are to stave off the worst effects of climate change, she warned as the Nairobi talks on the Kyoto Protocol began today.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party Euro-MP for South-East England and a member of the European Parliament’s influential Environment Committee, said: “Last week we saw the terms of the debate on climate change shifted by the Stern report, which put the lie to the notion that spending money tackling climate change was a poor economic gamble.

“This was the lie responsible for the US and Australia refusing to join the Kyoto Protocol, meaning it could never command global support – and, put simply, never solve the problem of climate change.

“World leaders at the Nairobi talks, including the UK ’s representative Margaret Beckett, have a duty to adopt tough binding emission reduction targets and to negotiate a truly global treaty.

“Such a treaty must be based on the principle of ‘Contraction and Convergence’, under which richer nations most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions – and better able economically to cut them – have the greatest responsibility to do so.”

The signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are meeting in Kenya until November 17 th to discuss a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in its current form in 2012.

They will be the twelfth set of UN climate talks since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, but global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The Kyoto Protocol has been widely criticised by Greens and environmental NGOs, for setting ‘weak’ targets, for excluding aviation and shipping (two of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions) from its calculations – and for the failure of the US and Australia to sign up.

“This week’s conference in Nairobi gives engaged nations the opportunity to negotiate a better, tougher, truly global climate change treaty for the first time,” said Dr Lucas.

“I hope they are prepared to spend the political capital necessary for them to do so. We need global leadership from Tony Blair and the EU, to bring about an urgent treaty setting binding targets for emissions reduction in a way which doesn’t hit poorer countries’ sustainable development.

“Such a treaty must include emissions from aviation and apply globally – with the unequivocal support of the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluters, the US and China .”

She added: “As the Stern report reminded us just last week, failure on climate change will cost us dear – the eventual price will be measured in lives lost, not pounds spent, and Tony Blair has a duty to match his rhetoric on climate change with some real global action.”

ENDS