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Global warming burning for G8
04/07/2005 15:52 - (SA)
Berlin - British Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a struggle to unite the world's leading powers on fighting global warming at this week's G8 summit, raising the question: Would he consider leaving a skeptical United States behind to secure an agreement among the other leaders?
Blair has made climate change a central issue of Britain's G8 presidency, describing it as "probably the most serious threat we face."
He wants an agreement among G8 leaders on the scientific threat posed by global warming and the urgent need for action.
US President George W. Bush acknowledged concern over climate change in an interview, describing it as a "significant" issue. Still, he called for shifting the debate away from limits on greenhouse gas emissions to new technology that would reduce environmental damage without restricting energy use.
"Our expectations on a unanimous ... strong agreement are very low, because George Bush isn't going to change his mind," said Stephanie Tunmore, of Greenpeace.
"We would hope that wouldn't stop the other G8 leaders coming out with a strong statement."
Tunmore said: "What we would really like to see is a very, very strong statement on the science underlying global warming.
The other G8 leaders at the meeting "can't afford to move back from what they've achieved," she said.
Underlining trans-Atlantic differences, French President Jacques Chirac said on Sunday that climate change is a matter of increasing concern.
Chirac said: "That's why we have indicated clearly to our partners that we could only accept a solution if it took account of a certain number of realities.
Chirac called for a statement on the issue to include specific mention of the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect in February and obliges participating industrialised nations to reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below their 1990 levels by 2012.
"I hope we will be able to reach in this field an agreement that is sufficiently clear and firm, otherwise there will be no resolution.
Chirac said he hopes "that all G8 partners be brought into a common action plan."
Of the G8 nations that have ratified Kyoto, the World Wide Fund for Nature says Canada, Italy and Japan are a long way from reaching their emissions targets.
While the others are close to or under their targets, the group cautions that emissions could increase in the future.
And they also are expected to rise in developing countries such as China and India that had no specific targets to meet under the Kyoto accord.
"All the G8 are far from securing a safe and stable climate," the director of WWF's climate change programme, Jennifer Morgan, said, citing "clear differences in the level of commitment and efforts to solve the climate crisis."
Bush, in an interview, renewed his insistence that Washington would not sign the Kyoto Protocol or any similar deals limiting gas emissions.
Still, he described climate change as "a significant, long-term issue that we've got to deal with" and acknowledged that human activity is "to some extent" to blame.
Bush said: "My hope is - and I think the hope of Tony Blair is - to move beyond the Kyoto debate and to collaborate on new technologies that will enable the United States and other countries to diversify away from fossil fuels so that the air will be cleaner and that we have the economic and national security that comes from less dependence on foreign sources of oil."
Many environmentalists see that focus as a diversion from the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.
The US alone accounted for 36% of carbon dioxide emissions in 1990.
Morgan said: "The Bush administration is not only failing to deal with the threat of climate change but is also actively trying to water down the G8's efforts on the issues.
"If the US is lagging behind, then it's time for them to be left behind."
- AP
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