Progress on Global Warming Is Questioned
Pastor Dale Morgan
May 5, 9:44 AM EDT
*Progress on Global Warming Is Questioned*
By DESMOND BUTLER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- European Union and U.S. leaders are hailing what they
say is a major step toward bridging their sharp differences on global
warming. Academics and critics of President Bush's policies, however,
question whether he really gave any ground.
At issue is a little-noticed sentence deep in a joint statement signed
during an EU-White House summit Monday. It said senior officials would
meet at a climate forum in Europe this year to discuss "market
mechanisms, including but not limited to emissions trading."
The EU's top official in Washington, John Bruton, said this signaled a
new U.S. willingness to discuss the EU's cap-and-trade emissions trading
system, in which mandatory limits are placed on carbon dioxide levels.
The Bush administration has strongly opposed U.S. participation in such
a system.
"This is an important step," Bruton said in an interview. "It's an
acknowledgment of cap and trade. We think there is nothing casual in the
language."
The U.S. ambassador to the EU, C. Boyden Gray, said, "I think it was a
concession on our part."
Some analysts say officials are exaggerating the significance of the
wording because both sides wanted to demonstrate improving relations and
to be seen as having made progress in international cooperation on
global warming. It is an issue that is gaining political importance on
both sides of the Atlantic.
"The international community is so exasperated by U.S. intransigence
that they will applaud any effort to appear engaged in this issue in the
hope that engagement will lead to real participation," said Paul Wapner,
director of the Global Environmental Politics program at American
University.
Henry Jacoby, co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and
Policy of Global Change, said the Europeans "tend to attach the greatest
significance to the smallest pieces of information out of the United
States."
But he said there are signs of loosening on other U.S. policies, so
anything is possible.
The joint statement was among several that emerged from a summit where
U.S. and European leaders sought to highlight closer trans-Atlantic ties
after years of disagreements over the Iraq war, U.S. treatment of terror
suspects and global warming.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made trans-Atlantic ties a priority
of her country's current term in the rotating EU presidency. She made
clear, however, that she would not raise carbon caps at the summit,
instead putting off intensified talks until a June meeting in Germany of
the Group of Eight major industrialized nations. Germany also chairs the
G-8 at the moment.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at a White House
news conference that the statement on climate change was better than he
had expected.
"I think it was real progress," he said.
Skepticism, however, came from both right and left.
"It doesn't surprise me that the U.S. has agreed to talk about a cap and
trade system; however, it would surprise me if the president agreed to
implement one," said Myron Ebell, director of energy policy for the
conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. "I think the Europeans
are grasping at straws."
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the advocacy group Environmental Defense,
says the administration has used the term market mechanisms before.
"What it hasn't been willing to do is place a firm cap on our nation's
greenhouse gas pollution," she said.
Gray, the U.S. ambassador, said the summit's statement was carefully
negotiated.
"It refers to cap and trade primarily, but that's not the only way to do
it," he said.
The world's only mandatory carbon trading program is in Europe. It was
created in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international
treaty that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from
power plants and factories in more than two dozen countries.
The White House has contended that complying with the Kyoto treaty's
requirement could cost millions of U.S. jobs. The Bush administration
has been pushing for joint development of technologies to combat global
warming, and the two sides have been exploring cooperation on research
of biofuels, renewable energy, clean coal and carbon capture and storage.
Kristen Hellmer, spokeswoman for the White House Council for
Environmental Quality, said the joint statement was "not referring
exclusively to the EU cap-and-trade system." She said the two sides also
would look at taxation, tax incentives, loans and loan guarantees and
other programs.
The EU's Bruton concedes that it is unclear whether the summit's
statement provides an opening for talks about U.S. participation in
carbon caps.
"It's clear that the language represents significant progress on
language," he said. "How that translates into action is another matter."
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Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.