Experts today renewed calls for a "green revolution" in spite of the global financial crisis, as Group of Eight (G8) environment ministers met in Italy with leading developing countries to discuss ways of combating climate change, according to dpa. "The time has come to start an energy revolution," said Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency at the G8 meeting in Syracuse, Italy. With polluting greenhouse gases set to increase by 45 per cent by 2030 in the absence of such a revolution, Tanaka said the world would need to build 20 new nuclear stations, 300 solar energy centres, 18,000 wind turbines and 30 carbon capture and storage plants each year to keep temperatures from rising to dangerous levels. Tanaka also called for 15 trillion dollars to be spent on developing low-carbon technologies, noting that global investments in renewable energy had increased by just 5 per cent in 2008 as a consequence of the global recession. This compares with an increase of 60 to 70 per cent in such investments between 2004 and 2007, Tanaka said. Wednesday's round of talks in the Sicilian city of Syracuse focussed on how rich and poor nations should share the cost of developing green technology and combating climate change - which according to some estimates could require investments totalling 300 trillion dollars by 2050. "We cannot ask developing countries to pay for our pollution, but developing countries must also do their fair share," said the meeting's host, Italian Environment Minister Stefania Giacomo.
