France – Climate Change: 0.25
The G8 final communiqué makes no mention of a tax on financial transactions that would be used to help fund the fight against climate change. While the G8 members expressed their support for other climate funding initiatives, there is no evidence to indicate that such a tax was discussed during the Summit.
The G8 members remain committed to jointly reducing their carbon emissions by at least 50 percent 2050 and have encouraged those countries that have not already done so to associate themselves to the Copenhagen Accord. The leaders stressed the importance of complying with the Accord and called for an effective and universal implementation of all its provisions, particularly those relating to measurement, reporting and verification of carbon emission levels. While these G8 statements demonstrate a clear commitment to the control of carbon emissions worldwide, they do not express support for the creation of a World Environmental Organization and thus only make for a diluted version of France’s climate change priority. Therefore, France has been awarded a score of 0.25.