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Is America the Villain in Bali?
Bryan Walsh and Nusa Dua, TIME Magazine
…[Al Gore], in fact, urged delegates to push ahead despite U.S. opposition, even to the point of drafting a negotiating document with blank spaces where American participation should be. But while Gore’s public criticism of his own country’s delegation – and implicitly, of the President who controls it – electrified his audience, what he said next was even more important. “Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not right now,” said Gore. “We are going to change in the U.S.”
That the U.S. leadership is deeply divided on climate change has been patently obvious to even the most casual observer here. Washington’s official delegation has emerged as the chief spoiler in moves to take meaningful action on climate change. But among the most vocal critics of the official delegation has been an array of American environmentalists, legislators and state and local government officials. Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, called the U.S. performance “the most explicitly irresponsible action that any American Administration has taken in any of our lifetimes.”
But the purpose of the shadow U.S. delegation here – spiritually led by Gore and including the likes of Sen. John Kerry, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and dozens of officials from California (Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had planned to attend, but budget negotiations kept him at home) – is to signal the world that the Bush Administration no longer represents the views of most Americans on climate change. They point to the fact that U.S. cities, states and, now, the Congress have taken steps to combat global warming, and that next year’s election will likely accelerate that momentum.
(13 December 2007)
US told to ‘wake up’ over climate change
David Adam, Guardian
The war of words between the US and the EU over climate change policy escalated today as the EU threatened to boycott US-led talks on the environment if it continued to block emissions targets.
As the deadlocked UN climate change conference in Bali entered its final days, delegates had still not agreed on a deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a UN pact which caps greenhouse gas emissions of all industrial nations except the US until 2012.
The US is opposing plans to make industrialised countries reduce emissions by between 25% and 40% by 2020. Next month it is hosting a meeting of 17 of the world’s top-emitting nations, including China, Russia and India, to discuss long-term curbs on greenhouse gases.
However Humberto Rosa, the environment secretary of Portugal, which currently holds the EU presidency, said today: ‘If we [were to] have a failure in Bali it would be meaningless to have a Major Economies’ Meeting (MEM) in the United States.
“We are not blackmailing,” he said at the 190-nation meeting. “If no Bali, no MEM.”
White House spokeswoman Kristin Hellmer responded by saying: “We don’t feel that comments like that are very constructive when we are working so hard to find common ground.”
Delegates in Bali are seeking to agree on a new climate treaty to tackle the effects of global warming once Kyoto expires. No agreement has yet been reached, and the EU is blaming Washington for obstructing the process, with officials demanding that the US “wake up”.
(13 December 2007)
Also at the Guardian from Tony Jupiter: American sabotage.
Bitter Divisions at Climate Talks
Thomas Fuller and Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Amid growing frustration with the United States in deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month.
Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the talks to be hosted by the Bush Administration in Hawaii in January would be “meaningless” if there was no deal this week here at the conference on the resort island of Bali.
Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, told reporters here, “No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting.” He was referring to the formal name of the proposed American-sponsored talks.
(14 December 2007)
EU uses Bush’s climate summit as leverage
Alan Zarembo and Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times
It warns it will boycott the talks in Hawaii next month if the U.S. doesn’t bend on global warming targets in Bali.
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NUSA DUA, INDONESIA — The European Union threatened today to boycott President Bush’s climate summit in Hawaii next month if the United States doesn’t allow specific targets for carbon emission reduction to be included in a draft text being prepared at a summit here this week.
The text is a road map for negotiations to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, and it called for industrialized countries to reduce emissions 25% to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. The U.S., however, has been adamant that the targets not be included.
(13 December 2007)
