G8 Breakthrough

According to the Earth Times, the G-8 has moved past an impasse to reach an agreement on greenhouse gas reductions.

Leaders of the world's key industrialized nations agreed a breakthrough deal on combating climate change, including a pledge to slash global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. "We have a great success ... a major step forward," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after leaders at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm gave their go-ahead to the climate change deal. "I can very well live with this compromise," said Merkel. But she added that "none of these documents are binding."The German leader, who is hosting the G8 meeting, said negotiations among G8 participants had been especially difficult on setting a precise 50-per-cent target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. She said it was significant that future climate change discussions would continue within the United Nations. The G8 statement on climate change referred to the need for a UN "agreement" on climate change - rather than a "framework" - following the 2012 expiry of the current Kyoto Protocol on global warming, said Merkel.

President Bush Proposes Greenhouse Gas Limits

According to the Chicago Tribune,

President Bush, who has long refused to commit the United States to specific limits on pollutants contributing to global warming, took a new turn Thursday in proposing that the U.S. and other leading nations by the end of next year set "a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases."

That is what the president will recommend to a summit of the Group of Eight major industrial nations in Germany next week, along with appeals to match the U.S. in dramatically increasing funding to fight AIDS in Africa and promoting freer international trade.
But with its lack of specifics, the president's plan for addressing climate change falls far short of what the other world leaders hope to deliver at the G-8 summit, set in a serene Baltic Sea resort in Heiligendamm, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an ardent advocate for averting global warming.

At the same time, European wariness of U.S. military involvement in Iraq-along with Russian concerns about a U.S. buildup of missile defenses in Eastern Europe-could contribute to an environment in which the American president, nearing the end of his second term, will have difficulty mustering support for his initiatives, U.S. and European analysts say.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

US Seeks to Water Down G8 Doc

According to a Washington Post syndicated story,

Negotiators from the United States are trying to weaken the language of a climate change declaration set to be unveiled at next month's G-8 summit of the world's leading industrial powers, according to documents.
A draft proposal dated April 2007 that is being debated in Bonn by senior officials of the Group of Eight includes a pledge to limit the global temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as an agreement to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The United States is seeking to strike that section, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

US Just Says No to G-8 Climate Change Ideas

According to the AP, the United States is still resisting getting onto the climate change action bandwagon.

The United States objected to key parts of a discussion on climate change at a meeting between G-8 environmental officials and representatives from five influential developing nations, Germany's environment minister said.
The conference ended with consensus on several points, including a general acceptance of the scientific explanation for the causes of global warming and that industrialized nations need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions more than mandated by current agreements, said German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who hosted the meeting Saturday.
Officials also agreed that industrialized countries have been responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions in the past and for the need to help developing countries control their emissions today, Gabriel said.
But the U.S. spoke out against a global carbon emissions trading plan and recognizing reforestation programs in developing nations as part of the fight against global warming, he said.

IREJN is Connecticut's Light and Power. Visit us at www.irejn.org.