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| World Home » Environment » | Fri. May 16, 2008 |
| Environment |
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G8 leaders agree on compromise formula on global warming MIL/Agencies, Jun 8, 2007. IRS/ James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer Heiligendamm, Germany: June 08, 2007 – It is great news for the people living on this planet that all industrial nations, large and medium, have agreed here on Thursday to a compromise formula to combat global warming as sought for by the American President Bush, who has sought goals rather than mandatory steps. All the participants in the group eight summit, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Participants in the Group of Eight summit, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, appreciated the views put forward by President Bush. He said while new talks were necessary to deal with climate change, the summit must not order specific steps and targets to reduce the greenhouse gases widely blamed for rising temperatures. Merkel entered the summit calling for a plan endorsed by most European leaders, under which participating nations would reduce their emissions by 2050 to half of what they were in 1990. Instead, she came away with a goal, a non-mandated course favored by Bush, of such an emissions reduction, and a decision to "invite" the "the major economies," a category that includes China, India and Brazil, to join them. "I can live very well with the compromise," Merkel told German television interviewers. While the chancellor and British Prime Minister Tony Blair presented the global warming agreement as a strong step forward, many environmentalists were not pleased. Reinhard Buetikofer, head of Germany's opposition Green party, said the summit statement was "juggling with words," and added: "To 'consider seriously' halving the emissions by 2050 is a triumph of vagueness and noncommitment." At the same time, Fred Krupp, who heads the U.S. organization Environmental Defense, praised Bush's acceptance of the summit plan. He said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Environment Committee, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., must promptly take advantage of widespread U.S. business support for a cap-and-trade program, under which polluters that have difficulty reducing emissions to capped levels can buy credits from others who reduce emissions below the limit. Such a system is in use in Europe under the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The new plan proposed here would replace that U.N.-sponsored agreement. Global warming was one of the central topics of the two-and-a-half days of formal and social meetings at the summit, whose participants are the United States, Russia, Germany, Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Japan.
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