Bush Says His Climate Plan Will Complement UN Bid
Date: 07-Jun-07
Country: GERMANY
Author: Caren Bohan and Tabassum Zakaria
"This will fold into the UN framework," Bush told reporters of his plan announced last week to arrange talks by the top 15 emitters of greenhouse gases with the aim of agreeing long-term cuts by the end of 2008.
Washington also said it would oppose a push by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree to sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at the meeting of leading industrial powers also expected to tackle issues including missile defences and Africa.
Many European nations had expressed concerns that Bush's plan might hijack UN talks on a global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the main UN plan for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, which runs to 2012.
Prior to meeting Merkel for a lunch at the start of the June 6-8 summit on Germany's Baltic coast, Bush said the US would serve as a bridge for the various approaches to dealing with climate change.
Merkel, chairing the annual meeting of the Group of Eight (G8), had hoped to secure US backing for a pledge to halve emissions by 2050 and limit warming of global temperatures to a key scientific threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.
But she is now likely to settle for an expression of US support for United Nations efforts to combat climate change and an agreement to tackle emissions at a later date.
Near the summit venue, police used water cannon to disperse groups of protesters trying to disrupt the meeting. Police spokesman Luedger Behrens said officers "used water cannons twice after demonstrators bombarded police with stones".
Police used water cannons to push back demonstrators. Eight police officers were injured in the clashes.
Behrens said roughly 10,000 protesters were violating a ban on demonstrations in the area and risked being detained.
RUSSIAN RELATIONS
In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the summit must agree to set a target for cutting greenhouses gases within a new global deal on climate change.
"What will be important at the G8 is... that we manage to get agreement that there should be a new global deal that involves all the main players including America and China...and that at the heart of that has to be a global target for a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions," Blair told parliament.
But a senior Bush adviser said that the United States would not sign up to sharp cuts nor to a European goal of limiting any temperature rise to a maximum 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
"At this moment in time on that one particular issue we do not yet have agreement," said James Connaughton, referring to firm targets for cutting emissions that scientists say will swell sea levels and cause droughts and floods.
Separately, Bush said that Russia did not pose a threat to Europe despite a vow by Moscow to target the continent if the US deploys a missile shield in central Europe.
"Russia is not going to attack Europe," Bush said. "I will continue to work with President Putin -- Vladimir Putin -- to explain to him that this is not aimed at him."
Differences between Washington and Russia centre on US plans to deploy parts of a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow is also resisting a push by Washington and European countries to grant independence to the breakaway Serbian province Kosovo.
After lunching with Bush, Merkel will meet Putin before holding a dinner and reception for all the G8 leaders in Heiligendamm, a seaside resort founded in 1793 as an exclusive summer spa for European nobility.
Leaders from the G8 -- the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada -- are expected to discuss other foreign policy issues including Iran's nuclear programme, Sudan and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.