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EU, Brazil eye climate partnership ahead of Copenhagen

07 October 2009, Earth Times
URL: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/288950,eu-brazil-eye-climate-partnership-ahead-of-copenhagen--summary.html

Stockholm:   The European Union and Brazil pledged Tuesday to join forces on fighting climate change in an attempt to set the framework for a global deal in Copenhagen in December. It is the strongest link-up to date between powers in the developed and developing worlds, and marks a joint bid to seize the initiative in a debate which many observers see as dominated by the United States, India and China.

"The EU and Brazil are standing together in the way they tackle the main challenges, and we face these challenges in the same way," the head of the EU's executive, Jose Manuel Barroso, told journalists in Stockholm.

The two sides "are united on the need to produce an adequate proposal for Copenhagen," where United Nations talks on climate change are set to run throughout the first half of December, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said.

At their third annual summit, the leaders of the two sides agreed that they should hold an extra high-level meeting in November to push for a deal in the Copenhagen talks.  "We want to increase the pressure on this climate debate," Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said.

As part of that process, Lula called for the creation of an accurate world-wide list of the amount of greenhouse gas each country emits and the amount of gas its forests soak up, so that the Copenhagen talks could set accurate national emissions goals.   "We will have to reach Copenhagen knowing how much each country emits, from the smallest African country up to the United States. ... Each country should take responsibility for the damage they are causing or the benefit they will bring," he said.

The declaration also committed the two sides to fighting a joint battle to win international funding to brake deforestation in tropical areas.   The majority of Brazil's emissions come from forest clearance, giving the country a keen interest in tackling the problem. Brazil has already vowed to slow deforestation by 70 per cent by 2015 and by 80 per cent by 2020, a pledge Barroso hailed as "ambitious."

According to the summit declaration, both sides will "step up efforts to ensure the inclusion of (reducing deforestation) in the Copenhagen agreed outcome and to establish an effective and reliable means of support ... with public finance offering strong incentives for action."

However, the statement weakened an earlier draft, proposed by the EU and seen by the German Press Agency dpa, which would have supported funding for efforts to preserve virgin forest areas alongside efforts to make commercial logging better managed.   And the summit also watered down an EU proposal for a permanent high-level climate-change committee to deal with cooperation on the issue after Copenhagen.

The draft summit declaration had included an EU proposal for the creation of such a body, which would also have been tasked with leading cooperation on the sharing of climate-friendly technology.   But the declaration approved by both sides called instead for a looser "cooperation framework for the promotion of low-carbon growth, through clean technologies and sustainability policies."

The summit also called for a deal on the global trade talks known as the Doha Round and discussed the reform of global financial systems and international flash-points such as Honduras and Iran.