G-8 summit isolates US on climate change

As Bush pushes for voluntary measures, other members endorse goal of halving greenhouse emissions by 2050.

from the June 8, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

There were just a few real areas of agreement: that a new climate treaty should be negotiated by 2009 and that it should take place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 agreement that set a target for emissions reductions among industrial countries but did not include binding commitments to meet the targets. The framework's failure to achieve emissions reductions led world leaders to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, which includes binding commitments for industrial nations.

Yet some read the communiqué to suggest that the rest of the G-8, particularly the EU, Japan, and Britain, have one-upped the United States in the effort to engage developing countries in discussions about a post-Kyoto regime. Five of the largest developing countries, whose rising emissions are of increasing concern, attended the meeting as observers.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Merkel "have started to create a consensus among the other G-8 countries and the five largest developing countries on the framework for a new agreement to be reached in 2009," says Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust in Washington. He notes that Canada also agreed to be included among the countries supporting a specific long-term emissions goal. "[The leaders have] started to create the consensus necessary for a new US president to come to the table in January 2009 and reach an agreement by that November."

Exactly what that president might agree to is an open question, cautions Lennon of the CSIS. Among many Republicans and many members of the business community, he says, there remains a strong preference for voluntary standards, concerns that emissions reductions would harm the economy in ways that obstruct the development of new technologies needed to fight global warming, and a dislike of mandatory emissions-trading schemes.

"There is a potential misperception that Bush is holding up the agenda," he says. "This was true up until two years ago. He was sticking to the idea that the science wasn't strong enough and that we couldn't be sure humans were causing the problem. But that's gone by this summit. Now it's a question about the means, between emissions reductions and developing new technologies."

The two are not mutually exclusive, he acknowledges. But, he adds, fears remain about sharp reductions costing economies the wealth needed to develop technologies that could help later.

The communiqué reveals other differences in strategy, he says. The EU appears to be focusing on an all-inclusive approach, "where all the countries in the world have to reach an agreement similar to the Kyoto Protocol," Lennon says. The US, instead, is trying to set up "what I would call a coalition of the necessary."

Whatever the strategy, the next venue for working through these differences and continuing the effort to engage developing countries in a post-Kyoto agreements appears to be Bali, where the next round of annual UN-sponsored climate talks is scheduled to take place in December.

1 | Page 2