EU questions US climate plan

Yesterday, President George Bush outlined a proposal to tackle climate change. The US wants to organise a summit of the 15 biggest polluters to draw up a strategy by 2008 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the plan, the free market, technology and voluntary, national targets alone should be sufficient to address the planetary crisis. The US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Critics say the plan is weak and vague, looks at the short term only, ignores years of ongoing multilateral efforts, will delay concrete action and rejects measurable and enforceable targets.

Some think the mere fact that the Bush administration finally recognises the threat of global warming means it has 'crossed the Rubicon' and that the US government may be negotiated into a more serious and comprehensive approach. Others see the plan as a "poison pill", aimed at preemtively killing all hope for a G8 agreement on climate change.

The White House proposal comes ahead of the G8 Summit to take place in Heiligendamm, Germany, next week. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who chairs the Summit, has put global warming at the top of the agenda and wants an agreement that will form the basis of the meeting of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December in Bali, Indonesia, when U.N. officials hope to launch formal talks on a post-Kyoto treaty.

Merkel, whose country also holds the rotating EU Presidency, has staked Germany's year long presidency of the G8 on reaching such a deal. She backs a far more ambitious plan that would limit average global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Practically, this will require - by 2050 - a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels. The EU's plan also calls for binding carbon emissions targets and a multilateral, global agreement similar to the Kyoto Protocol, including instruments to trade carbon certificates globally. The US had earlier indicated it will not accept binding targets and the new plan rejects them again.

The clash between the EU and the US positions was illustrated by José Manuel Barroso, President of the EU Commission: "It is clear that we need a more ambitious position from the US." He added that "the US is relying strongly on market mechanisms in the battle against climate change, and rightly so. But market mechanisms only work when one has binding targets." Mr Barroso stressed that the US preoccupation with technology to tackle global warming would only work if Washington signed up to a global system of "measurable, binding, enforceable targets."

On the need for a multilateral approach, the EU chief said "I hope that the United States intends to use the meeting as an opportunity to make the G8 summit contribute towards the UN's multilateral climate protection system." Barroso added that "in the US Congress there is very visible support for more ambitious proposals." Touring Europe, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indeed indicated support for a multilateral and far more comprehensive approach than that sketched by the White House.

"The leading role of the UN on climate change is non-negotiable," the chief German negotiator on climate change, Bernd Pfaffenbach, was cited as saying by the UK paper Guardian. Another German official described the US proposal as a "poison pill" aimed at undermining G8 and UN efforts to tackle global warming:
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German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who has been the lead negotiator for the G8 climate deal, has shed his diplomatic veneer and lashed out at the voluntarist US plans: "Now is not the hour of diplomacy. Now is the hour for real action." The German environment minister then took on the US directly, saying "the challenge remains that of convincing the Americans that they have a responsibility -- also for their own citizens who suffer from climate change." According to Gabriel, the US position makes it easier for developing nations to sit back and do nothing about reducing their own emissions. Countries such as India and China, said Gabriel, "have the attitude: 'if the industrialized nations don't take responsibility, then why should developing countries do so?' The only solution is to continue negotiations with the Americans and to put them under pressure."

Under Merkel's leadership, the EU has set ambitious targets for cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. A similar goal has been set for increasing the use of renewable energy resources. The EU also leads negotiations in preparation of a post-Kyoto agreement by the UNFCCC.

However, the influential German newspaper Financial Times Deutschland predicts the G8 summit, which takes place from Wednesday to Friday, will mark Merkel's "greatest foreign policy defeat" to date at the hands of Bush.

More information:
Jurnalo: EU head Barroso slams Bush climate plans, predicts failure at G8 - June 1, 2007.

EU Observer: Europe questions US conversion on climate change - June 1, 2007.

Euro Today: EU leaders greet new strategy with caution - June 1, 2007.

BBC: US seeks new greenhouse gas goals - May 31, 2007.

Washington Post: US rejects EU emission reductions - May 29, 2007.

Der Spiegel: Gloves Off in Row on Climate Change - May 29, 2007.