White House: No 'blood-letting' on climate change

Posted by Mark Silva

ROSTOCK, Germany – Don't look for any hard specifics in the 15-page agreement on climate change and environmental issues coming out of the Group of Eight summit this week.

Angela Merkel, German chancellor and host of the G-8 summit at a seaside resort on the Baltic Sea, hoped to forge a hard agreement on combating global warming among the leaders of the eight major industrial nations: Holding any increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Centigrade, increasing energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020 and halving emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

But President Bush, unalterably opposed to a "one-size fits-all'' agreement this week, refuses to accept hard numbers in Heiligendamm.. Instead, he is calling on the G-8 and several other greenhouse gas-emitters, such as China and India, to join in a discussion down the road with hopes of achieving a "global goal'' for reduction of greenhouse gases by the end of next year.

Despite all the focus placed on this conflict between the hard-charging summit host and a long-reluctant player in the global warming debate, the White House insists the debate behind the scenes is bloodless.

"I do not anticipate any letting of blood in this conversation,'' said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the president's Council on Environmental Quality. "The fixation with one proposal on one target has fascinated me,'' he said to repeated questions about why the U.S. won't accede to specifics."I would encourage you to move beyond your fixation with one target and one particular goal,'' he told a German asking why the U.S. can't agree with a German leader who has befriended Bush. "In America we have the expression -- losing the forest for one tree.''

The document that will come out of this summit "reflects a remarkable consensus,'' the White House's point man on the environment said in Rostock this morning. "This is a bundle.''

The Kempinski Grand Hotel, on the Baltic Sea at Heiligendamm, where the leaders of the G-8 are staying for a three-day summit. This and other photos by Mark Silva

Rostock.

Much of the world's press, and most of the global summit's protesters, are holed up this week in Rostock, a thriving river port center of the former East Germany, with the leaders of the G-8 staying several miles away at a palatial coastal resort. Bush will meet Merkel for lunch today in Heiligendamm, and they will join the rest of the leaders – from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada – at a late dinner this evening at the Hohen Luckow Estate Manor House in, where else, Hohen Luckow.

And – outside of the escalating debate over missile defenses that Bush has stirred with Russian President Vladimir Putin -- much of the press attention has been focused on a G-8 strategy for confronting climate change. Bush effectively undercut this summit by last week coming out with his own plan for a global summit involving more players – some 15 major emitters of greenhouse gas – and reaching a worldwide goal for reducing emissions, with specific national strategies for achieving that goal, by the end of 2008.

The Bush administration insists that this summit will produce a substantive document that represents a remarkable commitment to address these problems – if short of the specifics that Merkel wanted here.

"There will be an agreement,'' Connaughton said. "There will be an agreed G-8 text at this meeting. There is a huge amount of work that remains to be done that will fill out the details of the commitments the G-8 leaders have agreed to… We are now talking about the next step of developing metrics.''

Jim Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, says the administration will not accept a "one-size fits-all'' statement on climate change this week.

In "the climate agenda,'' Connaughton said, "the president has placed a very strong emphasis on global development, particularly on lifting people out of poverty. As we look at the climate agenda, we look at it in that context.'' This, he said, means ensuring that there is "a diverse supply of energy.''

"That's how we look at the issue of climate change,'' he said with a nod to the summit's host. "Under the leadership of Chancellor Merkel, you're going to see a very strong commitment on the part of all the G-8 leaders… on the next step forward…. I think you're going to see a strong commitment by these leaders to a process for establishing a long term goal, a commitment, to reduction of greenhouse gases.''

Each of the nations involved already has "a portfolio of initiatives,'' he said. "We have a very firm foundation for what can be achieved….The president has proposed and called on all nations to see, in the next 18 months, if we can define national strategies.''

The White House denies the accusation that Bush is slowing down progress on an international deal.

"Actually what we are doing is we are making a commitment to an accelerated process,'' Connaughton said. "You have the G-8 leaders who are firmly agreed to most of the elements laid out here… where there is disagreement is one or two of the metrics…. It is a gross distortion to represent that there is major (dispute here). You have agreement between the US and European Union that we need to come up with a common standard…. I could spend 20 minutes talking about this issue of'' consensus
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"There is no one size fits all to this,'' he said. "What we have opposed is the 2 degree temperature target. We are not alone in that… most countries, Russia, Canada, that I have spoken with do not accept that.''

And, on the question of those 20 percent and 50 percent goals?

"We are going to commit within the next 18 months to reach commitment on a long-term global goal,'' he said. "We have not sat down with China, India, Brazil and Africa… until we have everyone in the room and until we have a consensus among all of them, you wont see a collective goal on all of that… but it's coming.

At the same time, he said, the U.S. has not ruled out the 50 percent by 2050 goal.

"I have not indicated either opposition or support to that,'' Connaughton said. "At this time we are not prepared to adopt that proposal… We have to get all the ideas on the table and come up with a positive position… We've been consistent stating that for four months… That was our position going in.''

"On that one particular issue, we do not have agreement… From the U.S. perspective, we want agreement… we want it in 18 months,'' he said, effectively asking everyone to stay tuned. "It's critical that we find an approach that works for everybody. The United States can cap its emissions, with Europe, but if other countries aren’t part of that,'' manufacturing and trade will move to other countries, and there will be an increase in emissions, worsening the problem. "If we do not come up with a shared vision,'' he said, "all we're going to be doing is moving greenhouse gases around the world, rather than reducing them.''

Rostock -- a river runs through it.