EU split by Bush’s ‘green conversion’

MATTI HUUHTANEN AND JEFF MASON

EUROPE was yesterday struggling to decide whether George Bush, the US president, had experienced a road-to-Damascus conversion over the fight against climate change or was still dragging his heels.

For some leaders, the announcement on Thursday that Mr Bush was seeking a meeting of the 15 leading greenhouse gas emitting countries was “groundbreaking”, heralding a new approach by the United States to the whole issue.

But others complained it was simply a restatement of the “classic US line” with no firm targets to cut emissions and prevent global warming.

Mr Bush became a hate-figure for environmentalists when he decided against implementing the Kyoto treaty on climate change in 2001, saying it would cost US jobs and wrongly excluded developing nations.

In his speech on Thursday, the US president said he wanted the group of leading polluters, including the US, China, India and major European countries, to come up with a global target for carbon emissions but decide themselves how to reach that target.

On a visit to Finland, the EU Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said the new statement was a major step in the right direction, representing “a completely new approach” for Mr Bush.

“For me, it’s very welcome and groundbreaking news,” he said.

He added that it was particularly important for the Group of Eight countries meeting next week.

However the Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, had a very different take to his energy counterpart on the significance of Mr Bush’s comments.

“The declaration by President Bush basically restates the US classic line on climate change - no mandatory reductions, no carbon trading and vaguely expressed objectives,” he said.

“The US approach has proven to be ineffective in reducing emissions.”

The German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said Mr Bush’s announcement could be seen as progress only if it prepared the way for a United Nations pact to extend the Kyoto Protocol past 2012.

“If it is an attempt to hamper such an international climate change agreement, then it is dangerous,” he said.

“The European Union and also the G8 should not be content with initiating a process that just means we’ll have some vague agreements between ten or 15 countries in the world.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, wants the G8 to agree now on a need for world cuts of about 50 per cent in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

Her spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm, said it was too early to predict the outcome of the G8. “I think we can say at this stage that it’s going to be tough,” he said.

UN reports this year have projected ever more heatwaves, floods, desertification and rising seas because of rising temperatures linked to greenhouse gases, mainly from fossil fuels. The EU aims to cut its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.

CHINA SEEKS CLIMATE CHANGE SUPPORT

THE impact of global warming on China is clearer each day, a top-level meeting chaired by Wen Jiabao, the premier, has agreed.

China’s State Council said climate change must be tackled in a way that allows sustainable development. But it stressed: “Every region and government department should fully recognise the importance and urgency of combating climate change.” Officials called at their meeting for countries to bear “shared but different” responsibilities to combat rising temperatures.

It says China’s low per-capita emission levels, and rich countries’ responsibility for most of the global warming gasses in the atmosphere, mean the West should take stronger action to cut pollution.

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