G20 Host Gordon Brown

LONDON (Reuters) – World leaders at the G20 summit disappointed environmental groups on Thursday who said their commitment to fight climate change had been vague.

The leaders reaffirmed a previous commitment to sign a U.N. climate deal this year, a step the U.N. climate-change chief said was useful, though action would be better.

“In mobilizing the world’s economies to fight back against recession we are resolved to … promote low-carbon growth and to create the green jobs on which our future prosperity depends,” said summit host British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“We are committed to … working together to seek agreement on a post-2012 climate change regime at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December.”

Writing Prompts

• Did the G20 get their priorities mostly right or mostly wrong?
• How do you respond to this quote by M.J. Mace, legal advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia?  “If they can mobilize trillions of dollars to create jobs why can’t they do more to stop climate change?”
• A report for WWF and environment think-tank E3G published on Thursday said Britain’s and Italy’s recovery plans did more climate harm than good when road-building was included.  Are other countries “under-accounting” for the full environmental impact of their financial recovery plans?
• Why do you agree or disagree with Steve Howard, chief executive of the Climate Group, (an international environment and business group) when he says “I have no doubt that by Copenhagen or shortly after we’ll have some sort of broad, global framework. My only question mark is whether we set a high enough level of ambition”?