Just days before hosting a Group of Eight summit that has already drawn violent protests, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday described President Bush’s new initiative on global warming as “very welcome,” but insisted it must fall within the framework of United Nations treaty negotiations.
“The U.S. initiatives on climate protections are very welcome to us, under the condition that they are channeled into the framework of the U.N. program,” Merkel said during a news conference at her office with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He supported her position.
“It is good that the U.S. has made these commitments. We need to make sure that we keep these targets within the U.N. agreement,” he said.
Merkel stressed the need to work with the U.N. climate change program, which produced the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Merkel wants the G-8 to look ahead to the start of negotiations under U.N. auspices in December in Bali, Indonesia, on a new climate change treaty to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012. The Kyoto pact obliges 35 industrialized nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 percent below 1990 levels by its expiration year. [...]
Despite the differences, Merkel said any progress would be valuable.
“We have a success if, after the summit, we have moved a bit further ahead than before.”
“Every initiative must be channeled into the entire United Nations process,” she said. “If that happens, this would mean that the United States is back in the community of those who are concerned about reduction, and that would already be something.”
FULL STORY at http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/04/ap3783134.html
