Pelosi: Climate change is a reality

Pelosi: Climate change is a reality
By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 49 minutes ago

BERLIN - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) said
Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where
lawmakers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality,"
and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the
issue.

After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi
praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue.

Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a
climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized
nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed
the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps the amount
of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories
in industrialized countries. It expires in 2012.

President Bush rejected that accord, saying it would harm the U.S.
economy and unfair excludes developing countries like China and India
from its obligations. Pelosi, who strongly disagrees with that
decision and many other of Bush's environmental policies, said Friday
she said she wants to work with the administration rather than provoke
it.

Pelosi said she hoped Bush would be open to considering a "different
way" in the future.

The California Democrat pointed to her delegation's weekend stop in
Greenland, "where we saw firsthand evidence that climate change is a
reality; there is just no denying it."

"It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland — it was caused by the
behavior of the rest of the world," she said.

Scientists have noticed that Greenland's output of ice into the North
Atlantic had increased dramatically, doubling over the decade that
ended in 2005.

"We hope that we can all assume our responsibilities with great
respect and that our administration will be open to listening to why
it is important to go forward perhaps in a different way than we have
proceeded in the past," she told reporters.

Gabriel and Chancellor Angela Merkel have made the fight against
global warming a key point of Germany's presidencies of the G-8 and
European Union. Still, Merkel has said that progress at the June 6-8
summit in Heiligendamm is not assured.

According to comments on a document released by the environmental
group Greenpeace, the Bush administration is preparing to reject new
targets on climate change at the summit. The White House declined to
confirm the comments were from U.S. officials.

"We regret very much that we must so far have the impression that it
is difficult to reach concrete results with the American
administration," Gabriel said after meeting Pelosi.

Gabriel said industrial nations must take joint responsibility for the
global warming that has occurred thus far.

"For the climate change of the future ... we need readiness on the
part of China, India and today's other developing countries to take
responsibility themselves," he added. "We can and will only achieve
that if industrial nations do justice to their responsibility."

Pelosi, who is to meet with Merkel on Tuesday, said she wanted to
"salute Germany's leadership on this very important issue," and said
she hoped for a diplomatic debate within the United States.

Gabriel welcomed increasing interest in climate change at state and
city level in the U.S. and hailed Pelosi's decision to set up a select
committee on energy and global warming.

"This shows that there is a great deal of movement in the United
States, too, and we naturally hope that we will achieve progress in
Heiligendamm," he said.

The G-8 meeting has already drawn protests from antiglobalization
activists; 21 demonstrators were arrested Monday during unrest that
broke out after a march in Hamburg.