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Clash between US, G8 partners looms

"We believe that there are many different approaches to climate change."

Dana Perino, White House deputy press secretary

The prospect looms of a major clash between the US and its G8 partners over global warming, with Washington's view threatening to block agreement at next month's summit of the leading industrial nations.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday criticized the US climate policy in a newspaper interview, saying it "was going to [be] difficult to achieve success" at the June 6 to June 8 session hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has made climate change a priority during Germany's presidency of the G8.

The environmental protection group Greenpeace on Saturday published a leaked document showing that the US had raised serious new objections to a proposed global warming declaration prepared by the German hosts.

It looked to observers as though the objections from the US in the form of amendments had drained the substance from the German statement.

"The United States still has serious, fundamental concerns about this draft statement," the document stated.

Washington rejects the idea of setting mandatory emissions targets, as well as language calling for G8 nations to raise overall energy efficiencies by 20 percent by 2020.

Merkel's proposed climate statement calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 2oC and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

"The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple `red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to," the US document said.

Sources close to negotiations said the US amendments seek to remove any idea of an urgent problem of climate change requiring a firm international response.

"The preliminary sessions clearly indicate the American desire to minimalize [the draft]," one European diplomatic source said.

The administration of US President George W. Bush was refusing to take account of findings by an Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change, whose latest conclusions have been used by the Germans in their draft climate statement, the source said.

"I can't remember any major international climate meeting with that kind of complete divergence of views," said Phil Clapp, head of the National Environment Trust in Washington.

"There is a fundamental disagreement between the EU and the Bush administration positions. It's hard to see how governments could sign the sort of statement that Washington wants," he said.

Clapp said that "at this point we don't see signs that the [Bush] administration will change its position ... and as a matter of fact the signs go in exactly the opposite direction."

In Washington, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino played down the document leaked by Greenpeace while acknowledging differences.

"We believe that there are many different approaches to climate change," she said.

"By no means is there a final document," she said.
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