UK's Blair Pushes to
Speed up Climate Change Talks
November 03, 2006 — By Adrian Croft, Reuters
LONDON — British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, armed with evidence of the disastrous impact of ignoring climate
change, will talk to Germany's leader on Friday about speeding up a drive
for a new international pact against global warming.
Blair's meeting in London with German Chancellor Angela Merkel comes
before United Nations talks in Kenya next week to hunt for new ways to
fight climate change.
But experts say it may take three years or more to negotiate a successor
to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. plan for curbing emissions of greenhouse
gases which runs out in 2012.
Britain hopes a report it commissioned, which found the costs of inaction
in the face of global warming far outweighed those of taking urgent
measures, will galvanise efforts to reach a broad new international
agreement.
Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern's report, published this
week, said failure to act could plunge the world into an economic crisis
on a par with the 1930s Depression.
Merkel, a former environment minister, has said she will make fighting
climate change a priority next year when Germany takes over the presidency
of both the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialised nations and the
European Union.
"He (Blair) will want to discuss with her how to accelerate discussions on
a post-2012 framework on climate change and whether the G8 under the
Germans could agree the major elements of that framework," a spokesman for
Blair said.
Blair says a post-Kyoto framework must include the United States as well
as big developing nations China and India.
SEEKING U.S. COOPERATION
U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying it would
cut U.S. jobs and wrongly left out developing nations. Kyoto obliges 35
industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions thought to cause
global warming.
Merkel has said efforts to stop global warming without the cooperation of
the United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, are
doomed.
But winning round Washington could be difficult and some experts say a
deal on a post-2012 pact may have to wait until Bush leaves the White
House in January 2009.
As for EU policy, Blair believes there is a real opportunity for the bloc
to agree on a "bold new European energy and climate strategy that reduces
our dependence on carbon fuels, increases the diversity of energy supplies
and increases energy efficiency based on new clean technologies", the
spokesman said.
The EU's executive Commission approved a plan last month to cut EU energy
use by 20 percent by 2020. The plan for more efficient buildings, cars,
generators and appliances comes as EU doubts have grown over the
reliability of Russian supplies.
Other topics on the agenda for Friday's talks include Afghanistan -- where
Britain and Germany both have troops -- the Middle East, Iran's nuclear
programme and the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, the spokesman said.
A German government spokesman said the two leaders would also discuss
North Korea, which carried out an underground nuclear test last month in
defiance of international pressure.
Blair and Merkel are scheduled to hold a joint news conference on Friday
evening.
(Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Berlin)
Source: Reuters