The US has rejected any prospect of a deal on climate change at the G8 summit in Germany next month, according to a leaked document.
Despite Tony Blair’s declaration on Thursday that Washington would sign up to “at least the beginnings” of action to cut carbon emissions, a note attached to a draft document circulated by Germany says the US is “fundamentally opposed” to the proposals.
The note, written in red ink, says the deal “runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple ‘red lines’ in terms of what we simply cannot agree to”. …
The tone is blunt, with whole pages of the draft crossed out and even the mildest statements about confirming previous agreements rejected. “The proposals within the sections titled ‘Fighting Climate Change’ and ‘Carbon Markets’ are fundamentally incompatible with the President’s approach to climate change,” says another red-ink comment.
It's medieval in vision. I hope for Bush's legacy, and everyone else's future, that he has something better than a backrub for Angela Merkel, this time. There is two weeks for him to change his mind. Every thinking, acting American should email their senator and congressman, and the Whitehouse, and their media editors, and make it known that they strongly disagree with the concept of polluting the climate in order to maintain dependence on ever-diminishing, cheap-for-now, finite and foreign reserves of energy. It's not right for our kids to pick up the tab just to maintain a very narrowly-served dependence on festy fossil fuel.
:::[Online petition - America, join the G8 Climate Deal]
Global Warning Climate Change Energy
6 comments:
Sadly, it's not surprising at all. What will it take for the US administration to change its stance? Hopefully just a change in administration.
But the Summit is in two weeks.
I am very happy he is doing this. The G8 nations that signed Kyoto are not keeping with the reductions they promised, and promising to do it again is not going to do anything. Bush's approach is to push technology that anyone can use, and although we have not signed on to Kyoto, we have reduced our emissions more than many of the Kyoto countries, and we have done it by not driving more manufacturing to developing nations that are not either in Kyoto or the G8.
Thanks for stopping by the place and thanks for the heads up on the petition. I will highlight it the blog post. Come back to see us when you get a chance. I will add you the blog roll as our longest visitor.
Don, I appreciate where you come from, but not having a coal tax or emission trading system is not going to keep our manufacturing base here... we don't bloody have one to speak of in the first place! If you care to look at our trade deficit and the causes you will see I am correct.
We also export 33% of the world's coal - so we can affect the market by imposing a producer's tax.
As for the technology you speak of that 'anyone can use' - firstly clean-coal is not developed yet, secondly it will rely on the power station being located near very particular geographical formations for 'safe' geosequestration. So the technology will not be nearly as ubiquitous as you imply.
All we need to learn from the Europeans is that we need to be prepared to pay good money for the policing of compliance.
Thank you for taking the time to comment - it's valuable to have a range of opinions.
Yoour the best
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