GERMANY: G8 climate consensus emerging about the environment with U.S. odd man out

Environment ministers of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations, and officials from leading developing countries, are meeting to prepare for a June G8 summit at which climate change will be a major topic. A consensus on the need to protect the world's environment is emerging among rich and developing nations, but the United States remains at odds with other countries on key points, Germany said on Saturday (March 17). In addition to ministers from the G8 nations -- Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia -- the meeting was also attended by officials from India, China, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil. The ministers were in Germany to prepare the ground for a summit of G8 leaders that will take place in June in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put climate change at the top of the agenda for the meeting, which will also be attended by the leading developing nations that were in Potsdam. Achim Steiner, head of United Nations Environment programme UNEP told reporters outside Schloss Cecilienhof, venue of the G8 environment ministers' meeting, that he was optimistic about progress in the talks. "I believe the way the talks have been held give way to being optimistic about moving forward, but I also think we have not reached a point yet that allows us to say that we will have the great breakthrough in Heiligendamm, there is still a lot of work ahead of us, be it between Europe and the USA or between industrial nations and developing countries," said Steiner. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the U.S. remained opposed to a global carbon emissions trading scheme like the one used in the European Union and rejected the idea that industrialised nations should help achieve a "balance of interests" between developing countries' need for economic growth and environmental protection. "We find this regrettable. It would not be fair not to mention the disagreement with the USA, although I do not think I have to judge it", Gabriel told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting, which he chaired on behalf of Germany's G8 presidency. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters there were areas where progress had been achieved, noting a broad consensus on the causes of global warming. The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which for years questioned the reliability of scientific findings showing man-made pollution was responsible for a warming of the planet, has shifted its stance. Washington now backs the conclusions in a UN report last month which said mankind was to blame for global warming, and predicted an increase in droughts, heatwaves and a slow rise in sea levels. "What I find particularly encouraging about this meeting is the fact that this political consensus is emerging, that a sense of urgency is emerging," de Boer said. "And that gives me much more confidence that, when we have the final IPCC report in december, when we've been informed about the science, the impact of climate change, the possibilities that we have to act on climate change, that at the conference of parties in Bali in december of this year, politicians will stand ready to give a political answer to the science and take the next policy step forward", he continued. Developing countries cite the U.S. position as a reason for their refusal to commit to reduction targets. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and the U.S. position will be key in negotiating post-Kyoto emissions targets.

ITN Source | March 18, 2007

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