European Climate Envoys Expect Little From Bush
Date: 01-May-08
Country: US
Author: Deborah Zabarenko
"We acknowledge that we cannot expect much movement on climate change from the current White House," a delegation from the European Parliament said in a statement at the end of a three-day Washington visit.
"However, considering the hope that we place in all three US presidential candidates, we expect the next US administration to make climate change a priority -- and to begin drafting the relevant domestic legislation -- from day one," the statement said.
Most of the delegates, members of the elected legislature of the European Union, declined to choose one among the three current White House candidates, but Avril Doyle of Ireland favored Arizona Sen. John McCain's plan to cut greenhouse emissions.
"There is no doubt McCain, on record at the moment, looks the most promising," Doyle said at a briefing. "Whether he will deliver with his Republicans remains to be seen. But the others will come on board ... we're in an election year."
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, co-authored a bill to cut emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide by 65 percent by 2050 and favors unspecified increases in fuel and overall energy efficiency.
Democratic contenders Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, battling it out in state presidential primaries, both support an 80 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.
The next US president takes office in January.
LOOKING TO CAPITOL HILL
The United States is alone among the major industrialized countries in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol that calls for a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions.
President George W. Bush has resisted mandatory economy-wide limits. On April 16, he announced a US goal to halt the growth of greenhouse emissions by 2025, a move widely criticized by environmental groups for letting emissions continue to grow for 17 years.
The delegates looked to Congress, where cap-and-trade legislation is set for Senate debate in June, to help link a US carbon-trading scheme with what is in place in Europe.
They met with key US lawmakers who deal with energy and climate change, including Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent who is co-sponsoring current climate legislation.
They also went to the White House for a meeting with members of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Karl-Heinz Florenz of Germany characterized this meeting as "a clear statement of the United States views and you certainly can't dispute all of those views."
He said through an interpreter, however, that the US government does not seem to be motivating manufacturers to reduce carbon emissions.
"If you take the lead, others will follow," Florenz said of US action on climate change. "If you do not, the European Union, China and India will perhaps form an alliance, take on the leadership themselves in world environmental technology. But we do see a renaissance in environmental interest and technology in the United States at the moment."
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
