Bush to Tout Climate Concessions, Balk at G-8 Targets (Update2)

Bloomberg, June 7, 2007

 HYPERLINK "http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=au8j.9JU6sJk&refer=home" http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=au8j.9JU6sJk&refer=home

By James G. Neuger

President George W. Bush will defend his call for a new roundtable on combating global warming at today's Group of Eight summit, resisting European pressure to set binding targets now for emissions cuts.

After giving ground to European critics last week by proposing an international conference to tackle man-made pollution that is overheating the earth's atmosphere, Bush said he won't go further when the summit on the German seaside formally starts today.

U.S. policy is to ``develop a framework that has the flexibility, and at the same time, the goals so we can encourage the world to move in that direction,'' Bush said yesterday after arriving for the G-8 parley in Heiligendamm, Germany.

Bush's counteroffensive on climate change has divided the European camp on how to respond, with summit host German Chancellor Angela Merkel keen to craft a face-saving compromise while new French President Nicolas Sarkozy pushes for more American concessions.

Merkel, 52, is trying to pull off a diplomatic coup like the one she engineered in March when the 27-nation European Union set tighter targets for cutting greenhouse gases and curbing the use of fossil fuels.

A Bush ally, Merkel is counting on a climate-change compromise to salvage a summit clouded by heated rhetorical exchanges between a newly assertive Russia and the West and by anti-capitalism demonstrations that degenerated into scuffles with police yesterday.

The G-8 groups together the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia.

India and China

Bush, 60, said last week the U.S. wanted to convene talks on targets for emissions cuts in the future as long as fast- growing developing countries such as China and India were bound into the process and each country is allowed to chart its own path toward meeting standards.

The German leader indicated that she won't prod Bush to go further, saying in an interview with German television channels yesterday: ``There are different positions here and you cannot expect them to disappear overnight.''

American opposition to mandatory and measurable targets for pollution cuts poses a first test for Bush's relationship with Sarkozy, who took office last month vowing both to fight global warming and improve ties with the U.S. that were strained by the Iraq war.

`Act Now'

Calling for a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gas pollution by 2050, Sarkozy, 52, arrived at his first G-8 summit yesterday intent on bringing the White House around.

``President Bush has made a first effort, but we need to set ourselves targets to clearly show the determination of the G-8 to act and to obtain results,'' Sarkozy said. ``If we don't act now, it will be too late to avoid a disaster. It will cost less than if we wait.''

Sarkozy leaned harder on Bush than other European leaders. U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, set to leave office in late June, welcomed the new U.S. engagement on global warming and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told RAI television that ``the American president has made comments in the last few days that have been more open than in the past.''

Bush and Blair were set to brief the press after a one-on- one meeting early today.

European Commission President Jose Barroso, at Merkel's side in crafting the EU's anti-pollution strategy, today told German ZDF television that ``the Americans are not yet where we would like to see them, but it must also be recognized that they have made some considerable progress.''

15 Nations

Faced with a growing clamor at state, local and corporate level in the U.S. to act against global warming, Bush is seeking talks among the world's 15 biggest polluters to set long term goals for limiting pollution from gases such as carbon dioxide.

In a further nod to those skeptical about his commitment, Bush yesterday said directly that he expects the talks to operate ``within the framework of the United Nations.'' While Bush initially set a goal of completing the negotiation over the next 18 months, the UN is set to embark in December on talks to create a follow-up accord to the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012.

``We'd like to move out on it very quickly,'' White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters on a conference call. He said the 15-nation talks could wrap up before the UN negotiations resume.

Russia, Japan and Canada side with the U.S. in opposing Merkel's plea for a goal of capping the global temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in Heiligendamm.

Competing Interests

China, the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind the U.S., weighed in yesterday, putting the fight against poverty ahead of environmental goals.

China's torrid economy has defied official efforts to cool it down. Gross domestic product expanded at an 11.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the fastest pace of any major nation, after growing 10.7 percent in 2006.

``Only once a nation is able to develop will it truly take care of its environment and do less to affect climate change,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters after arriving in Germany. Chinese President Hu Jintao will be among non-members joining the final G-8 session tomorrow.