Washington (Platts)--25Sep2007

The US-sponsored climate change meeting this week, which the Bush
administration said is intended to be the first in a series to try to  reach a
post-2012 global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may be the last
unless the administration is willing to support mandatory caps on its
greenhouse gas emissions, environmentalists said Tuesday.

     "There is no commitment from the other countries coming that this process
should continue beyond the first meeting," Alden Meyer, director of strategy
and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a telephone
briefing. "I know from conversations with some of the delegates that they
don't think it's going to produce a useful convergence of views around issues 
like the 2050 goal [of reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of at
least 50%], and they don't plan to come to future meetings."

     The administration envisions a process that will continue into next year,
and reaching an agreement by the end of 2008, shortly before it leaves
office. The effective period of the Kyoto Protocol runs from 2008 through
2012. United Nations' talks on a post-2012 agreement resume in Bali in
December.

     Including the US, representatives from 17 countries and the European
Union and UN will be attending the White House's "major economies" meeting
Thursday and Friday in Washington. With the exception of the US and Australia,
seven of the industrial countries attending have ratified the Kyoto Protocol
and accepted mandatory emissions reductions.

     The others are rapidly industrializing countries which do not have
emissions reduction obligations under Kyoto. They include China, whose overall
emissions have, by some estimates, exceeded those of the US. The developing
countries have indicated that they would be willing to accept limits on their
growing emissions if the industrial countries, and in particular the US, take
the lead.

     "We still have to get the US to take the first step and then developing
countries will come onboard," said David Doniger, climate center policy
director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. China and India are saying
"they are willing to make some significant contribution of slowing and
reducing their emissions growth, but only if the [US] is at the table," he
said.

     "A problem the administration faces is that thus far it has been
unwilling to say that it supports mandatory caps on US greenhouse gas
emissions," said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental
Defense. "If the closing statement (of the administration-sponsored meeting)
says we've made tremendous process because we've agreed on a set of work
plans, we don't regard that as meeting the litmus test of leadership."

     "Everyone is trying to figure out what this meeting is and what it can
accomplish," Meyer said. "If the US is unwilling to put any specific ideas
forward about how we turn the emissions' curve around, how is this making a
useful contribution? So I think the administration has some convincing to do
that this process makes sense."

		--Gerald Karey, gerry_karey@platts.com