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Canada and Russia 'climate bullies' among G8

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-03 13:20

Canada and Russia, both northern and oil-rich, are making the least progress in cutting carbon dioxide emissions among the major economies, a new study shows.

Canada is furthest from its reduction target for the greenhouse gas under a global treaty and has made little progress compared with other Group of Eight members, according to the report commissioned by German insurer Allianz SE. Output of CO2, released by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, is the second-highest on a per-capita basis after the US, which is writing its first legislation to curb carbon emissions.

The North American nation of 34 million people has the world's second-largest oil reserves taking into account the tar-like bitumen clumped together with sand and clay in northern Alberta. Extracting and refining oil from tar requires more energy than pumping conventional crude and has contributed to Canada's 26 percent increase in CO2 emissions since 1990.

"Since the US has moved out of the bad-boy status, Canada and Russia have become the bullies of the climate change process," said Angela Anderson, program director of the US Climate Action Network. "In Canada, the tar sands is what most people are worried about because this goes against the goal of a low-carbon economic pathway."

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Leaders from the US, Canada and other G8 members meet this month in Italy to discuss ways wealthy nations can support greenhouse gas cuts in developing countries without harming economic growth.

Russia has "few policies in place" to curb emissions and has no "comprehensive" national plan for combating climate change, the report said. The world's largest country gets less than 1 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

Global CO2 emissions must be cut by between 50 percent and 80 percent by 2050 to avoid an average temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and stop sea levels from rising and droughts worsening, according to the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change.

The G8 scorecard, compiled for Allianz and WWF by the research group Ecofys, ranked Germany as the best among the G8 nations for reaching climate change emissions reductions and supporting the development of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

France was ranked third, the UK was second and the US was seventh in the study. Japan, in the fifth position, has declining energy efficiency, the report said.

US President Barack Obama "has done more to support a clean-energy economy in the last four months than has been done in the last three decades together in the US," said Richard Moss, managing director of climate change at WWF USA.

Representatives from 182 nations meeting in Bonn last month created more than 200 pages of a draft agreement with proposals on how to slow global warming. Negotiations culminate in Copenhagen in December when delegates will attempt to complete a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.