The Associated Press
Thursday 27 September 2007
Washington - The United States is lining up with China, India and the world's other biggest polluters in opposition to mandatory cuts in Earth-warming greenhouse gases sought by the United Nations and European countries.
President Bush's two-day climate meeting, opening Thursday, will emphasize creating more processes to find a solution to global warming, rather than setting firm goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for heating up the atmosphere.
The nations summoned by Bush will "seek agreement on the process" and more work teams for nations to set their own strategies beyond 2012, when the U.N.-brokered Kyoto Protocol expires, according to a White House statement Wednesday.
It also "could include a long-term global goal, nationally defined midterm goals and strategies, and sector-based approaches for improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions," the White House said.
That has European leaders, who concede that the biggest polluting nations must be part of any solution, walking a thin line between skepticism and optimism.
"We can't do this on the basis of talking about talking or setting goals to set goals," John Ashton, a special representative on climate change for the British foreign secretary, said in an interview. "We know that a voluntary approach to global warming is about as effective as a voluntary speed limit sign in the road. We don't just need an approach that works; we need an approach that works very quickly."
Bush's meeting notably includes the fast-emerging economies whose exclusion from the group of industrialized nations participating in Kyoto has been cited by his administration as reasons for rejecting that international climate accord.
By doing so, Bush has competed for attention with the climate change summit that was held Monday in New York City at which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned 80 world leaders that "the time for doubt has passed" and urged fast action to save future generations from potentially ruinous effects of global warming.
The U.S.-led talks Thursday and Friday unite countries at both ends of the economic spectrum, the haves and have-nots, in opposition to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases, but for different reasons. The already industrialized nations do not want to harm their economies, as Bush has argued. Developing nations do not want to give up ground toward industrializing - and meeting basic human needs.
"For a developing country, the main task is to reduce poverty," Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of China's national development and reform commission, told a forum Wednesday sponsored by the Center for Clean Air Policy, a think tank.
Mexico's environment minister agreed. "We have always to bear in mind that half our population is at the poverty line," said Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada. "We are also extremely concerned about the consequences, the adverse effects of climate change."
They expressed a strong preference for the climate negotiations later this year sponsored by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, for which Ban's summit Monday was intended to build momentum.
"All these discussions should be taken within the framework of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol," Xie said.
But developing countries still are trying to curb their emissions while lifting the welfare of their citizens, said Sergio Serra, Brazil's first ambassador in charge of global warming issues.
"It is a myth to think the developing countries are doing nothing to address climate change," he said.
Portuguese environment minister Humberto Rosa, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency, said it would be unfair to expect developing nations to adopt firm targets for cutting carbon emissions, the way the biggest industrialized polluters should.
Three U.N. envoys on climate change and the German environment minister urged U.S. lawmakers Wednesday to commit to binding caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Poll: Many Pessimistic About Environment
By Alan Fram
The Associated Press
Thursday 27 September 2007
Washington - People want their leaders to move boldly to help the environment but give them dismal grades for their actions so far, according to a poll released Wednesday that highlighted rampant pessimism on the issue.
Only about one in five voiced approval of how President Bush, Congress and U.S. businesses have been handling the environment. And while decisive majorities said they want strong public and private action, fewer than one in 10 said they had seen such steps in the past year, according to the poll by The Associated Press and Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment.
The survey, conducted days before Bush was convening an international climate conference in Washington, showed that though Democrats and independents were consistently more critical than Republicans, anxiety is widespread over the environment and global warming.
"I don't understand why we're letting people destroy the Earth the way we are," said Jerry Menees, 34, an independent voter and truck driver from Potosi, Mo. "It scares me what this world is coming to."
Only about a fifth think the environment is in good or excellent shape, including 39 percent of Republicans. Just over one in 10 think it is faring better than a decade ago or will improve a decade from now, while about eight in 10 say global warming is under way - views that were broadly shared across party lines.
The 84 percent who believe world temperatures are rising is virtually unchanged since Stanford and ABC News conducted a similar poll in March 2006. But while 45 percent of that group said in 2006 they were very or extremely sure, 61 percent said so in this month's survey - including most Democrats and independents and a sizable 39 percent of Republicans.
On the other hand, of the 14 percent who said global temperatures are probably not rising, nearly half say they are very or extremely sure - up from the roughly one-third who felt that strongly last year.
"I don't understand how they can say there is global warming or man causes it when it's a natural cycle of the planet," said Russell Marshall, 34, a student from Enid, Okla., and a Republican. "It's like the planet cleanses itself from time to time by changing temperature."
In some of the starkest partisan differences, Democrats and independents strongly disapprove of Bush's performance on the environment, while Republicans approve by 50 percent to 18 percent. Republicans were also likelier to think Bush and business have caused little harm.
Yet even among the GOP and conservatives, those saying they want Bush, Congress, business or the public to take strong action far outweighed those who said they prefer that little or nothing be done. Nearly six in ten Republicans said there would be serious problems if global warming is not addressed, and more of them said the environment is worse than a decade ago - and will be even worse 10 years from now - than saw improvements.
"I just don't see anything being really aggressively done," said Sonia Alfonso, 50, an interpreter in Greenacres, Fla., and a longtime Republican who is unhappy with Bush and other leaders.
Even so, this year's poll showed slightly smaller numbers of people favoring strong action on the environment than last year, especially among Republicans.
The poll was conducted before this week's meeting of world leaders at the U.N. designed to spark momentum for international talks in December on further limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause global warming.
Bush, who has opposed mandatory emissions cuts embraced by 175 other countries in the 1997 Kyoto treaty, is holding his own meetings this week with top officials from countries that are major producers of planet-heating gases.
Under Bush, the U.S. has refused to ratify the Kyoto pact. Arguing that binding caps would hurt the U.S. economy, he prefers long-term voluntary goals and clean energy research.
The survey also comes as the Democratic-led Congress moves slowly on the matter.
A House-passed bill would require most utilities to generate at least 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources like the wind, while the Senate has voted to require Detroit to produce more fuel-efficient autos. Lawmakers must approve a compromise before sending it to Bush.
"I'd like to see the Democrats stand up to Bush, put him on the hot seat," said Sam Butler, 53, a writer from Brooklyn, N.Y., among the nearly two-thirds of Democrats unhappy with Congress' actions. "Congress has to start pushing through alternatives, they've got to start cutting back on oil consumption."
This year has seen growing pressure on the U.S. to act, including a U.N. report concluding that man is almost certainly causing global warming; an Oscar for former Vice President Al Gore's film on rising temperatures, "An Inconvenient Truth"; and a Supreme Court ruling that the government can regulate gases heating the planet.
The survey involved telephone interviews with 1,001 adults from Sept. 21 to 23, and was conducted for the AP and Stanford by Ipsos, the polling company. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Ipsos: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com
Stanford University: http://woods.stanford.edu/docs/surveys/GW_200709_AP_survey.pdf
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