May 31, 2007

Bush Announces New Global Strategy On Climate Change

UPDATED.

The White House has announced a new long-term, international strategy for combating climate change ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit in Germany. The plan, which President Bush unveiled in a speech today, calls for global economic powers to band together and set shared targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases," Bush declared in a speech on the U.S. international development agenda. "To help develop this goal," he added, "the United States will convene a series of meetings of nations that produce most greenhouse gas emissions, including nations with rapidly growing economies like India and China."

The Wall Street Journal (subscription) noted this morning that "the initiative... is likely to run into criticism among some environmentalists, who worry that Mr. Bush's separate dialogue among the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitters will tend to undermine broader United Nations negotiations that are just getting under way."

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is seeking a more formal agreement among nations that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in five years. A senior White House official told the Journal that "the dialogue Mr. Bush envisions will actually strengthen the formal U.N. discussions, by solving the biggest impediments to a deal, namely the lack of participation by emerging giants like China, India and Brazil, which aren't covered by Kyoto."

Earlier this week, Asian foreign ministers, including those from China and India, expressed support for the European Union's plea for a new treaty by 2009, although "deep differences" over emissions standards remain between negotiators from industrialized and developing countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to make forging a compromise on climate change and emissions standards a major goal on the G-8 agenda. On a trip to Germany this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged Bush to keep an open mind on the issue at the summit next week.

But James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, rejected the European Union's suggested emissions target Tuesday, saying the United States supports setting goals, but "has different sets of targets" for specific sectors rather than the blanket requirements proposed by Europe.

Bush said today that he planned to address the issue at the G-8 summit. "I'm going to encourage world leaders to increase their own investments in research and development," he said. "'m looking forward to discussing ways to encourage more investment in developing nations by making low-cost financing options for clean energy a priority of the international development banks."

Posted at 12:33 PM
Posted to: Bush Administration, Climate Change
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