Gore: US Blocking Climate Talks Progress
Tom Hanks With The Aids
Associated Press
Posted: 2007-12-13 07:30:47
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday the
United States is "principally responsible" for blocking progress at
the U.N. climate conference in Bali.
Gore urged delegates at the conference to take urgent action to reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
"My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for
obstructing progress here in Bali," said Gore, who won this year's
Nobel Peace Prize for helping alert the world to the danger of climate
change.
The United States has opposed including in a final conference document
a suggestion that industrialized countries reduce emissions by between
25 percent and 40 percent by 2020.
Earlier Thursday, European nations threatened to boycott U.S.-led
climate talks next month unless Washington accepts a range of numbers
for negotiating deep reductions of global-warming emissions.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further
information. AP's earlier story is below.
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - European nations on Thursday threatened to
boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington accepts a
range of numbers for negotiating deep reductions of global-warming
emissions at a U.N. conference here.
The move raised the stakes as delegates from nearly 190 nations
entered final-hour talks on Bali aimed at launching negotiations for a
successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The United States, Japan and several other governments refuse to
accept language in a draft document suggesting that industrialized
nations consider cutting emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by
2020, saying specific targets would limit the scope of future talks.
The European Union and others say the figures reflect the measures
scientists say are needed to rein in global warming and head off
predictions of rising sea levels, worsening floods and droughts, and
the extinction of plant and animal species.
"No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting," said Sigmar
Gabriel, top EU environment official from Germany, referring to a
series of separate climate talks initiated by President Bush in
September. "This is the clear position of the EU. I do not know what
we should talk about if there is no target."
The U.S. invited 16 other major economies, including European
countries, Japan, China and India, to discuss a program of what are
expected to be nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse
gas emissions.
The Bush administration views the major economies process as the main
vehicle for determining future steps by the U.S. - and it hopes by
others - to slow emissions. But environmentalists accuse the U.S. of
trying to undermine the U.N. process.
The talks in Bali are scheduled to wrap up Friday.
U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said he was worried the U.S.-EU
deadlock could derail the process and that a final "Bali roadmap"
would contain an agreement to negotiate a new climate deal by 2009,
but may not include specific targets for emission reductions.
"I'm very concerned about the pace of things," he said. "If we don't
get wording on the future, then the whole house of cards falls to
pieces."
The United States delegation said while it continues to reject
inclusion of specific emission cut targets, it hopes eventually to
reach an agreement that is "environmentally effective" and
"economically sustainable."
But haggling over numbers now was counterproductive, said Jim
Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality.
The United States is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases
and the only major industrial country to have rejected Kyoto, which
expires in 2012. It has been on the defensive since the conference
kicked off on Dec. 3.
Pressure has come even from a one-time ally on climate, Australia,
whose new prime minister urged Washington to "embrace" binding
targets, and from former Vice President Al Gore, who won this year's
Nobel Peace Prize for helping alert the world to the danger of climate
change.
But U.S. Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, the head of the
American delegation, told reporters that the conference was simply the
start of negotiations, not the end.
"We don't have to resolve all these issues ... here in Bali," she
said.
That did not satisfy environmentalists, who accused Washington of
standing in the way of a meaningful deal - and not just on the
inclusion of emissions targets.
In the end, however, all parties agree it is vital that the U.S. is on
board.
"Everyone wants the United States in so badly that they will be
willing to accept some level of ambiguity in the negotiations," said
Greenpeace energy expert John Coequyt. "Our worry is that we will end
up with a deal that is unacceptable from an environmental
perspective."
The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse-
gas emissions by a relatively modest average 5 percent below 1990
levels by 2012.
Bush has argued that the pact would harm the U.S. economy and cutbacks
should have been imposed on poorer but fast-developing nations such as
China and India.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the
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Bawana
wrote:
> Gore: US Blocking Climate Talks Progress
> Associated Press
> Posted: 2007-12-13 07:30:47
> BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday the
> United States is "principally responsible" for blocking progress at
> the U.N. climate conference in Bali.
The US gets it correct again.
Who gets the medals?