Bush's Climatic Poison Pill - Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany [View All]

I'm hoping (probably vainly)that congress will stop this latest assault on the planet.

http://www.watchingamerica.com/sueddeutsche000013.shtml

George W. Bush engineered all of this rather beautifully. For weeks he let G8 negotiators brood helplessly over the wording of its statement on climate change - helpless over just how far, if at all, the USA could be bound into protecting the global climate. Now, less than a week before the summit, he has proposed a plan that could set negotiations back to zero: Now the countries with the largest levels of carbon dioxide emissions should be permitted to decide for themselves how much CO2 they may burden the atmosphere with in the years ahead.

Bush has thereby - for the first time - moved in the direction of obligatory targets in terms of climate change. But his proposal is insidious. It is a poison pill - capable of not only sabotaging plans at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, but also the next climate summit of United Nations.

This is because the framework proposed by Bush would stand outside the Kyoto Protocols . No longer would the world community - the polluters and sufferers together - decide on the future of global climate politics, but only the polluters. It is unlikely that the perpetrators will be willing to introduce the much needed radical reduction of emissions. It's as though the criminals would be permitted to unite and establish their own criminal court.

The timing of the announcement says a lot about Bush’s climate politics. With only days to spare, the nations of the G8 will find it difficult to work out a compromise that strengthens the Kyoto Protocols, without at the same time making a dupe of Bush.