Who trusts Bush anyway?
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Experts remain skeptical of Bush climate initiative
by Marlowe HoodFri Jun 1, 1:09 PM ET
Climate experts have greeted George W. Bush's call for a "new framework"
to combat global warming, proffered days ahead of a G8 summit at which
climate change will top the agenda, with some relief but even more
skepticism.
"It is positive that President Bush recognizes the urgency of dealing
with climate change and the principle of reducing greenhouse gases,"
said a top European diplomat who will attend the summit in Heiligendamm,
Germany.
What is worrying is that he "has totally ignored the existing framework
for negotiation," he said, referring to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The US is a member of the UNFCCC, but failed to ratify the one
instrument it produced -- the Kyoto Protocol -- that mandates a
reduction of the gases, primarily carbon dioxide, that are driving
global temperatures higher.
Under intense international pressure to take action, Bush proposed on
Thursday that "by the end of next year, America and other nations will
set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases."
He gave no indication, however, as to the size of the emissions cuts
Washington might commit to or when they would take effect.
Other experts underlined the absence of enforceable measures in the Bush
proposal.
"There is no mention of sanctions, of legally-binding targets. This is
not the quantum leap in climate policy from the US that we need to solve
the problem," commented Thomas Downing, director of the Stockholm
Environment Institute in Oxford, an independent think tank focusing on
development and environmental issues.
Downing, who is also a lead author of the UN's recent three-volume,
scientific report on global warming, said that Bush's initiative could
even prove counter productive.
"It conflicts directly with the existing climate policy process ... and
could result in further conflict and chaos in international
negotiations," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is hosting the summit of G8
leaders, welcomed Bush's statement, but suggested there was still a
large gap between the European and American positions on how to keep the
world from overheating.
"As far as the concrete formulations for Heiligendamm are concerned, we
will have to make significantly more progress," she said.
The US rejected a draft summit statement on global warming prepared by
Germany that called for limiting worldwide temperature rise this century
to 2 C (3.6 F), and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50
percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
"Bush talks about a long-term global objective, but then says it's up to
each state to decide what it wants to do given its particular
constraints," noted Morgane Creach of Action Climate Network, a
federation of 13 environmental groups in France.
His proposal is "nothing more than an enlargement" of an earlier US
initiative, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and
Climate, "which is targeting a technological solution to climate
change," she said.
According to experts, technological solutions -- renewable energy
sources, bio-fuels, carbon sinks -- will only yield significant results
in 15 to 20 years. In the meantime, they argue, only strong incentives
in the form of market mechanisms or regulations can push industry to
large-scale investments.
"It is true that climate change is, in many important ways, a technology
problem, and the US has made progress on this front," said Downing.
"But the solutions are technically and environmentally difficult to
implement on a large scale" and insufficient in themselves, he said.
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