G8 summit will not produce greenhouse gas targets: Britain

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2005

BERLIN (AFP) — The British government said that the Group of Eight summit next month would not produce specific targets for reducing greenhouse gases from the highly industrialized countries.

Secretary of State for Environment Margaret Beckett said that the United Nations remained the preferred forum to discuss the specifics of fighting climate change, despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's goal of making the environment and Africa the twin points of focus at the G8 meeting.

"It has never been the approach of the British (G8) presidency to try to second-guess the (UN) Climate Change Convention or to put in place a parallel or alternative structure to that meeting and those processes," Beckett said after talks with her German counterpart Juergen Trittin.

"All we...