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July 06, 2005

U.S. versus “G8” : No Change for Climate Change ?

The Group of 8 summit is set to highlight differences
of opinion between the United States and the
remaining 7 nations represented. A highly contentious
issue is on the agenda: climate
change. Britain’s prime minister Tony Blair, who will
preside over the summit, hopes to stimulate efforts by
forming a joint call to action between the nations, of
which the U.S. is the only one left to not have signed
the Kyoto Protocol.
Opinions in the European press have been vastly
pessimistic as to the outcome of the summit,
predicting little hope of seeing the U.S. budge from
its current position. Instead, it seems that a
watered-down version of the text, revised by U.S.
negotiators, will be the only option offered up at the
G8 summit. A version that French president Jacques
Chirac, who had previously threatened to veto any
weakened version, seems nevertheless poised to sign :
“We’ve had difficult negotiations, and it seems that
we are orienting towards an agreement,” he stated on
July 4 to Liberation.

The draft of the G8 joint statement, first divulged to the New York Times on June 18 shows the signs of U.S. pressure
by deleting the introductory
statement “Our world is warming.” Newer versions show
that while President Bush would be ready to state that
“climate change is a reality” and that the problem
must be dealt with through new technologies, U.S.
negotiators have also taken out any mention of the
role of humans in climate change. Bush, in a broadcast
for British TV station ITV, stated that he would
indeed refuse to sign anything that resembles the
Kyoto Protocol.

Will the remaining nations feel that what is left of
the original statement, however weakened, is better
than nothing? will nothing be signed? or will they
instead choose to issue a “G7” statement excluding the
U.S., thereby strengthening the gap between the U.S.
and the rest?

For Denis Delbecq, environmental writer for the French
newspaper Liberation’s online blog, there is no
possibility of a “G7” document excluding the U.S. on
the subject. While Blair, under pressure from French
and German officils, has made threats to that effect,
these, according to analysts in Europe, are empty.
While the outcome is as of yet unclear, what emerges in many
analyses by the European press is that the issue is
yet another one that sets the U.S. at odds with
Europe.

Posted July 6, 2005 07:42 AM

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