G8 Climate Debate
June 5, 2007
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the current presidency of the G8, wants this week's summit participants in Heiligendamm to agree to set long-term goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But she faces opposition from US President George W. Bush, who wants to convene a global summit that includes a new generation of polluters from the developing world such as China, India and Brazil.
Germany wants the G8 to agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 50 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2050 in order to ensure that the world's average temperature increase due to global warming does not exceed two degrees Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit).
A New Kyoto
Germany wants this to form the framework for a new United Nations protocol on climate change to replace the Kyoto agreement when it expires in 2012.
Merkel won backing from British Premier Tony Blair, although she appears to be less optimistic that a landmark deal will be reached at the summit to cover the post-Kyoto period.
"At the G8 we need to agree the elements of a future framework," Blair told parliamentarians in the German capital on Sunday. "This would allow the UN talks to accelerate and reach earlier agreement so that we have a framework for Kyoto in place by 2009."
The Bush plan
Last week Bush called for about 15 countries that account for the bulk of greenhouse-gas emissions, including the US, to meet later this year for talks on a "long-term global goal" for cutting emissions.
The US has acknowledged that climate change is a serious problem caused by humans that requires action - though, in the US, only through voluntary steps.
The role of China, which is not a member of the G8, is crucial, as many experts believe it could overtake the United States this year as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
China on Monday issued its own plan for responding to global climate change but urged developed nations to take the lead and allow poorer nations to focus on economic development.
At the same time, Japan said it would use the G8 to launch an aid program for developing countries that would encourage them to fight global warming as well as pollution and poverty.
Bush versus Merkel?
Merkel, who has made the fight against global warming a key issue of Germany's G8 presidency, is scheduled to have lunch with Bush immediately before the start of the G8 summit on Wednesday.
There has been a mixed reaction to the president's call for global warming talks with a select group of polluter nations. But it was not meant to sideline broader UN discussions on climate change, US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said last week.
"It is an effort to try and find consensus on the way ahead," he said ahead of the G8 summit grouping the US, Canada, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and Russia.
"This week presents an opportunity to turn Mr. Bush's newfound interest in climate change into a commitment to do something about it soon," Britain's Observer newspaper said in an editorial.
Merkel, who was to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday evening and Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe on Tuesday, said she was confident the pre-summit talks would lead to "important steps" being agreed upon.
"We will fight until the very last moment for concrete wording," government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said in reference to the final communiqué to be issued by the end of the week.