The United States delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference in
Bali
has led Japan, Canada, and Russia in rejecting the nonbinding EU
proposed roadmap of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by wealthy
countries 25 to 40 per cent by 2020. (By way of comparison,
Lieberman-Warner (S. 2191) proposes a four percent cut from 1990
emissions levels by 2020.) The U.S. team is also opposing including
references to the IPCC’s conclusions on the
emissions reductions needed to avoid dangerous global warming.
In a speech today at the
conference,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore said “My own country, the United
States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali
. . . One year and 40 days from today, there will be a new inauguration
in the United States. I must tell you candidly that I cannot promise
that the person who is elected will have the position I expect they will
have, but I can tell you I believe it is quite likely.”
In a letter to the President, 52
members of Congress, including a handful of Republicans, criticized the
U.S. negotiating stance:
The clear implication is that the United States will refuse to agree
to any language putting the United States on an established path
toward scientifically-based emission limits. . . We write to express
our strong disagreement with these positions and to urge you to direct
the U.S. negotiating team to work together with other countries to
complete a roadmap with a clear objective sufficient to combat global
warming. The United States must adopt negotiating positions at the
Bali Conference of the Parties that are designed to propel further
progress – not fuel additional delay.
E&E News reports on
EU threats to boycott a U.S.-led climate meeting:
Upset with the U.S.-led stance, senior officials from the European
Union, France and Germany have threatened to boycott Bush’s plans to
hold climate talks Jan. 30-31 in Honolulu.
“Without a roadmap and without a destination, it would be senseless,”
said Stavros Dimas, the top environmental official for the European
Commission. Dimas told reporters he made the same statement earlier
today to Paula Dobrianksy, the lead U.S. negotiator at the climate
meetings on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Karsten Sach of Germany’s environmental department and French
negotiator Brice Lalonde both confirmed their countries also would
stay away from Bush’s “Major Economies Meeting” if there is no
agreement in Bali.
White House spokeswoman Kristen Hellmer didn’t take well to the E.U.
threats. “Such comments are not very constructive when we are working
so hard to find common ground on a way forward,” she said.