Arizona officials deny that they had trapped the animal deliberately, but a project member says she was directed to put bait near a leg-hold snare.

In response to the communiqué released at today’s G20 meeting, David Norman, Director of Campaigns at WWF-UK said:

“Today’s meeting was a huge missed opportunity for the G20 leaders. They failed to position sustainability at the core of their efforts to restructure the world’s economy.

“As we head towards the crucial climate talks being held in Copenhagen in December, it is vital that we see a clear move towards a low carbon, more equitable future. Without it, we stand no chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, today’s outcome is worryingly vague.

“While it is welcome that the G20 leaders reaffirmed their desire to reach a new climate change agreement, the lack of clear commitment to ensure that a substantial percentage of the economic stimulus is devoted to climate friendly measures is of real concern. It should be very clear by now that the climate crisis and the financial crisis are inextricably linked, and that trying to solve the latter on its own means that we, and the planet, will pay more later.

“In the coming months there will be further opportunities, for example at the G8, for leaders to link the financial and trade stimulus to the creation of a green economy – and the world cannot afford for these to be missed too.”

For further information, please contact:
Jo Sargent, Senior Press Officer, WWF-UK
Tel: 01483 412 375,
Mob: 07867 697 519,
Email: jsargent@wwf.org.uk

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Editor’s notes
The way we live in the UK is leading to environmental threats such as climate change, species extinction, deforestation, water shortages and the collapse of fisheries. WWF’s One Planet Future Campaign is working to help people live a good quality of life within the earth’s capacity. For more information visit www.wwf.org.uk/oneplanet

Commissioned by WWF and E3G and carried out by Ecofys and Germanwatch, the report provides the most detailed and comprehensive analysis to date of the proposed ’stimulus’ packages of five key countries – France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US – as well as examining the package agreed by the European Union as a whole. “These packages amounting to billions of dollars provide a clear opportunity to shift to a more environmentally-sustainable economy when planning a recovery from the world’s global recession,” says Kim Carstensen, Director of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative. “Unfortunately, close examination of the proposed packages reveals a failure to properly incentivise green technologies or to move away from high carbon investment. It is abundantly clear that the world must act now in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and that unless we invest in a sustainable, low-carbon economy now, we will certainly pay the price later – a price far greater than that of the current economic crisis. The packages currently on the table fail to reflect this reality.”

The report examined the environmentally-beneficial elements of each package in the context of the stimulus as a whole, offsetting low-carbon developments against any potentially carbon-intensive investments. It also considered whether the financing proposed is a direct investment – for example low interest loans to improve energy efficiency – or an indirect one such as tax incentives.

When analysed in this way, the data collected revealed that in the worst cases, the amount of carbon-intensive stimulus actually exceeded the amount devoted to climate-friendly measures. The study also revealed that of all fifteen countries that have announced their plans for economic stimulus, only five (plus the EU as a whole) have the necessary data available to carry out a detailed analysis of their proposed expenditure on climate-friendly measures.

“The fact that we are unable to comprehensively analyse the results of two thirds of the countries which have announced packages is a real concern,” says Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G. “Even the data for the six packages analysed in the report was relatively limited and it was often difficult to pinpoint which sector the money was actually intended for. This lack of transparency allows far too much scope for greenwashing, and equally, for the good work done by investment in clean technology to be completely undermined by parallel investment in carbon intensive sectors such as fossil fuels and new roads.”

WWF and E3G are calling on all countries putting forward economic recovery packages to provide comprehensive details of the environmental benefits and impacts of the proposed investments and to ensure that these investments help rather than hinder the global transition to a low carbon future.

Key findings:

Of the $1.1 trillion worth of stimulus packages analysed the effectiveness adjusted climate friendly expenditure amounts to just $73 billion – a tiny share (6.6%) of the total stimulus.

The cost of reducing global emissions to a level that will limit global temperature rise to 2°C is estimated to be between 1-3% of global GDP. Our analysis shows that Germany and USA have given the highest priority to green measures, at around 0.5% of national GDP. Even these totals are well below the required level of investment to avoid catastrophic climate change..

Greater clarity and transparency is needed about the extent of climate friendly measures included in the stimulus packages of all countries in order to avoid potential greenwashing and to allow a real understanding of proposals.

The G8 must shoulder its historic responsibilities and commit far greater amounts of their stimulus packages to climate friendly measures, so as not to burden the developing world with a massive climate debt in addition to a financial one.

Most countries focus their activity on energy efficiency in buildings and cars, ignoring key opportunities offered by renewables or restructuring of electricity grids.

In Italy, where climate-friendly stimulus is only relevant for the transport sector, investment for new roads exceeds investment in public transport and subsidies for efficient vehicles by roughly 30%.

The UK stimulus has entirely neglected the potential for investment in renewables and is given an overall negative score based on a $742 million investment in highways

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Editor’s notes

The way we live in the UK is leading to environmental threats such as climate change, species extinction, deforestation, water shortages and the collapse of fisheries. WWF’s One Planet Future Campaign is working to help people live a good quality of life within the earth’s capacity. For more information visit www.wwf.org.uk/oneplanet

E3G is an independent, non-profit European organisation operating in the public interest to accelerate the global transition to sustainable development. A new E3G report, “Delivering a Sustainable Low Carbon Economy”, is available at www.e3g.org
For further information or a copy of the report and accompanying briefing document, please contact:

Jo Sargent, tel: 01483 412 375, Mobile: 07867 697 519 , email: jsargent@wwf.org.uk

“The global economic crisis is a critically important opportunity to begin building an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future, and one we ignore at our own peril” said David Norman, Director of Campaigns at WWF-UK. “Any argument that climate change should be moved down the political agenda until the current economic crisis is addressed is incredibly shortsighted. Finance and the climate are inextricably linked, and if we don’t address climate change now, we will certainly pay later.”

According to a new analysis released by WWF and E3G today, many of the economic stimulus packages up for discussion at the G20 summit risk locking the world into a continuing high carbon economy.

WWF will be attending the summit as part of the Put People First coalition and will be available for comment.

For further information, please contact:

Jo Sargent, Senior Press Officer, WWF-UK
Tel: 01483 412 375, Mob: 07867 697 519, Email: jsargent@wwf.org.uk

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Editor’s notes

The way we live in the UK is leading to environmental threats such as climate change, species extinction, deforestation, water shortages and the collapse of fisheries. WWF’s One Planet Future Campaign is working to help people live a good quality of life within the earth’s capacity. For more information visit www.wwf.org.uk/oneplanet

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