Climate conference ends without targets

Audrey McAvoy, Associated Press Yahoo News 1 Feb 08;

A meeting of delegates from the nations that emit the most pollutants ended without concrete targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, but participants praised what they saw as a new willingness by the United States to discuss possible solutions.

Delegates from 16 nations, plus the European Union and the United Nations, gathered in Hawaii this week at the invitation of the U.S. to discuss what should be included in a blueprint for combatting climate change.

Among the topics were energy-efficient technologies, ways rich countries could help developing countries and countering deforestation.

Delegates said the U.S. showed a new flexibility since earlier climate change meetings, and that they were able to talk frankly about their differences.

"We're happy the position of the United States is changing," Brice LaLonde, France's climate change ambassador, said at a news conference Thursday following the two days of closed-door talks at the University of Hawaii.

LaLonde pointed to bills in Congress addressing climate change and the Bush administration's move to host the Hawaii meeting as evidence for a shift for Washington. But he said France hoped for additional changes, specifically for the U.S. to join other industrialized nations in agreeing to a national mandatory greenhouse gas reduction target.

"Of course, we want more. We hope in the next weeks after these discussions that we'll be able to deliver more," LaLonde said. "But it's a good start."

Delegates didn't discuss the details of a European Union proposal for industrialized countries to slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent, said Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Commission's head of climate change negotiations.

The emissions reduction proposal — and U.S. opposition to it — was one of the biggest sticking points of a contentious climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, last month.

The conference ended with the U.S. agreeing to join nearly 190 countries to craft a blueprint for fighting climate change by 2009. But that only happened after participants loudly booed repeated U.S. objections to the document.

Britain's environment minister, Phil Woolas, said no nation wants to be singled out as the obstacle to progress on climate change.

"Bali has put the spotlight on you, doesn't it. There's no country that wants to be the party pooper," Woolas said during a break in the Hawaii talks.

He added that delegates shared a sense that work needs to get done because of the dire consequences of rising temperatures, sea levels and environmental catastrophes.

"There's a realization that we have to get an agreement; otherwise we're all going to drown," Woolas said.

Chief U.S. delegate Jim Connaughton, the White House environmental chief, said President Bush has long highlighted the importance of reducing emissions.

He pointed to U.S. efforts supporting hydrogen energy, funding for energy efficient technologies and partnerships with other countries.

"We like to prepare, plan and announce. This is what the president has done consistently since 2001, as you can see it's gaining increasing appreciation," Connaughton said after the talks.

The U.S. has been seeking voluntary pledges from nations for specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Nations represented at the conference account for 80 percent of emissions that scientists say contribute to global warming. In addition to the U.S., Britain and France, they are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and South Africa.

Environmentalists had voiced skepticism about what the Hawaii talks would accomplish, given the U.S. opposition to mandatory national reduction targets of the kind agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol a decade ago.

The EU has proposed cutting its overall emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels, or 14 percent from 2005.

Demonstrators were absent Thursday, but about a dozen had protested the day before outside the meeting to object to what they said was insufficient commitment from the Bush administration to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Others drew blue chalk lines along Honolulu city streets to show where high tide would be after decades of global warming and rising sea levels.

World's big polluters note change in U.S. climate stance
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 1 Feb 08;

HONOLULU (Reuters) - The world's biggest greenhouse polluters applauded the United States at climate change talks on Thursday, but some urged Washington to take the next step by setting goals to reduce its emissions of climate-warming carbon.

The United States, alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, noted that the two-day Hawaii meeting addressed the toughest areas of disagreement among the countries that use 80 percent of the planet's energy.

Brice Lalonde, the French ambassador for climate change, noted a shift in the U.S. position, which he said had previously been "a bit lagging" in failing to set goals to reduce its overall emissions of greenhouse gases.

"And now we are seeing that the United States is discussing the matter," Lalonde said at a news briefing. "We welcome this move. Of course we are waiting for the next step, which would be that the United States will also have a goal in reducing its greenhouse gases, joining in that way all developed countries."

The U.S.-hosted meeting in Honolulu gathered delegates from 17 so-called major economies - the Group of Eight industrialized nations plus fast-developing China and India along with Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and the European Union - to work together to spur U.N. negotiations on climate change.

The goal is to craft an international agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. To make sure the new agreement is ready in time, a new pact must be ready by 2009.

The United States, by most counts the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, rejects Kyoto on the ground that it unfairly exempts China and India and says any new agreement must include all countries.

The first meeting of major economies, convened in Washington in September, found some delegates complaining that the United States was isolated for its stand against Kyoto and that the U.S.-led process had the potential to distract from rather than contribute to the U.N. negotiations.

James Connaugton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, sounded encouraged by the frank, hard-working and civilized tone of this week's talks.

"You're not seeing the questioning, the concerns, you're not seeing that," Connaughton said in an interview on the final day of the closed-door sessions.

"We're now getting into some very specific areas on some issues that are quite sensitive and we are working hard to more clearly understand the different perspectives of different delegations and look for common ground."

"We had a very constructive debate," said Matthias Machnig of Germany's Ministry for the Environment. "It's very important to have an international regime of mandatory targets based under the umbrella of the United Nations and hopefully we made a step forward here to come to real agreement in 2009."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Mood positive as Hawaii emissions talks wrap up
Yahoo News 1 Feb 08;

Two days of international talks to discuss strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions ended in Hawaii late Thursday with delegates optimistic on an action plan drawn up at stormy UN-sponsored climate negotiations in Indonesia.

Representatives from 16 countries, together with the European Union and UN officials, moved forward in an effort towards reaching a new agreement in 2009 that will help combat global warming.

Participants at the conference came from nations which account for 80 percent of the emissions that are blamed for global warming.

The United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, South Africa and the United Kingdom were all in attendance.

France's climate change ambassador Brice Lalonde described this week's talks as positive, saying they reflected a new willingness on the part of the United States to address the issue.

"We are happy that the position of the United States is changing and we welcome this and we welcome this meeting, because it's a sign that the position has changed," Lalonde told a press conference.

"Of course, we want more and we hope in the next weeks after these discussions we will be able to deliver more, but it's a good start. We had a real good discussion, a real discussion face-to-face."

Jim Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council for Environmental Quality and the US representative at the meeting, described the meeting as "productive," saying there was a shared commitment for progress.

The meeting was part of a two-year round of negotiations aimed at implementing the most ambitious treaty ever attempted for reining in greenhouse gases, the carbon pollution from fossil fuels damaging Earth's climate system.

At last year's UN conference, delegates delivered a roadmap which set out the framework for negotiations for a long-term agreement on emissions which will replace the landmark Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

Bush's climate talks 'engaging'
Roger Harrabin, BBC News 1 Feb 08;

The latest US-led climate talks in Honolulu, Hawaii, have been described by delegates as the most frank and engaging climate negotiations so far.

It was the second in a series of Major Economies Meetings called by US President George W Bush.

He called the first in Washington last year after expressing a desire to find a solution to the climate issue.

That first meeting was described by angry EU delegates as a waste of time, a PR stunt for the American elections.

But this time the tone was very different.

One EU delegate said: "I came expecting nothing and was very pleasantly surprised. Normally, we get sterile pre-prepared statements of policy, but this time there was a very frank discussion exploring the very difficult and different conditions facing each of the countries. It was very constructive."

Brice Lalonde, the French climate ambassador, added: "It was very low-key but people just got on with it. The talks were very positive… until the final statement was discussed."

At that point, he said, Russia and India refused to include a statement that they had been discussing mandatory, internationally binding commitments, even though that is exactly what had been discussed.

A number of delegates offered a degree of optimism that the big economies might this year agree a global target for cutting emissions by 2050.

Issues aired

The US is said to be moving slowly towards a figure, but India is holding out because a long-term global target implies emissions cuts for them. They feel that with per capita emissions a twentieth of the Americans, it is unfair to expect them to reduce emissions overall.

Part of the idea of the meetings is to air issues like this.

EU delegates said that for the world to achieve any serious long-term target on CO2, new technologies would be needed that would benefit India as much as America.

The US offered at the talks to commit its national energy policies to a UN-shared agreement if all major economies agreed to do the same.

The Europeans said any American commitment that did not include a firm pledge to actually cut greenhouse gases (rather than increase energy efficiency) was inadequate.

Boyden Gray, the US envoy to the EU who was present in Honolulu, said he believed that the progress made in the recent UN climate talks in Bali and now in Honolulu, meant the world looked to be on track for a comprehensive global agreement on climate by the end of 2009.