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In the year since your last meeting, there has been a remarkable and important shift in the global public perception and attitude towards climate change. This shift presents us with an unparalleled opportunity to take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Simultaneously, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in its recent report concluded that 30% of species face an increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise by 2ºC. The Equator Initiative and Countdown 2010, as representatives of over 250 organizations, building on the World Environment Day message supported by the Convention on Biological Diversity and United Nations Development Programme strongly request the Group of Eight, gathering tomorrow in Heiligendamm to consider the following actions:

As the leaders of the developed world, G8 countries pledged to contribute 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product to official development assistance by 2015. This amount must be allocated and spent on efforts to achieve the MDGs, and will only be wholly effective if it is directed at environmentally sustainable approaches to economic and social development. In addition to reaching the 0.7 per cent ODA target, the Group of Eight should provide the global leadership to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation, and implement innovative financing mechanisms to direct funds from carbon markets towards sustainable development in the world’s poorest countries. 

1. The global effort to stabilize the earth’s climate requires the global application of a number of approaches in parallel. We must reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, industrial and otherwise, through the legislation of strict energy efficiency standards, the taxation of carbon emissions, active participation in carbon credit trading schemes, and the innovation and application of carbon neutral technologies. The world must also identify and protect natural carbon sinks and learn more about the potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. These factors must form the basis for a post-Kyoto climate regime. We urge the G8 negotiators to adopt a clear mandate to use the UNFCCC COP in Bali of this year to agree on a formal negotiating mandate for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol by 2009, thus demonstrating leadership to the rest of the world community.

2. At the most basic level, climate protection and biodiversity conservation must be integrated with development and economic growth. Active climate policy offers the economic opportunities of innovation and technological development and industrialized nations must take the lead. The Group of Eight must champion sustainable consumption and production methods. We call on the Group of Eight to lead the world in integrating biodiversity and climate change concerns into all relevant sectors such as trade, development, agriculture, finance and transport.

3. Building on existing knowledge to inform future scenarios, we must be vigilant to ensure that potential solutions, which reduce carbon emissions from one source do not increase carbon emissions from another source. Ineffective climate change mitigation has negative impacts on biodiversity and exacerbates climate change. Solutions must be socially and ethically sound. For example, biofuels are not a viable alternative if they are produced from lands obtained through deforestation and conversion to monoculture, especially from peatland forests or from the traditional lands of indigenous peoples. It must also be ensured that the market for biofuels does not threaten food security. The Group of Eight should take the lead in establishing the terms for the production and trade of ethical, environmentally, socially, economically sustainable biofuels and consider establishing a mechanism to provide concrete guidelines and recommendations.

4. Development strategies must include incentives to maintain the intact forests of the developing world as important stores for biodiversity and natural sinks for carbon. With a reliable international market, carbon finance for forest conservation and the restoration of degraded lands could support livelihoods, reduce pressures on indigenous peoples, and create biodiversity and other environmental assets. We ask the Group of Eight to support an economically viable socially equitable incentive scheme for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation in order to ensure that the world’s poorest countries have reason to safeguard their vast forest wealth in manner that benefits not only the planet but also safeguards the rights and livelihoods of local forest-dependant communities. Recognizing the impact that illegally harvested timber has on forest loss and degradation and given the leadership role the G8 has played in raising this issue we also ask the G8 to undertake a review of national and international action to combat illegal logging and to report back with recommended actions at the 2008 G8 Summit in Japan.

5. Local and indigenous peoples live in direct contact with the environment and have developed sustainable solutions to biodiversity conservation, adaptation to climate change and poverty reduction over the long-term. The Group of Eight must give weight to this source of traditional knowledge by investing at the community-level to help poor countries respond to development challenges and achieve the MDGs.

6. The Potsdam Initiative – Biological Diversity 2010 adopted by the G8+5 Environment Ministers provides ten priority actions which should form the basis of future G8+5 discussions. We encourage Group of Eight and in particular the Japanese G8 Presidency to take forward these actions and refine them to concrete targets and outcomes.

The world possesses both the financial resources and technical knowledge required to surmount the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, success is only a question of political will, resource allocation, and commitment. We are concerned with the wellbeing of people and the environment worldwide and we urge the Group of Eight to provide catalytic leadership in the form of concrete actions on these crucial, interrelated, and timely issues.

*The Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together civil society, business, governments, and communities, with support from the United Nations, to help build the capacity and raise the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Countdown 2010, hosted by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), is a powerful network of active partners working together towards the 2010 biodiversity target. Each partner commits additional efforts to tackle the causes of biodiversity loss.