SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. is set to reject new targets on climate change at next month's Group of Eight summit, the Associated Press reported Saturday, citing a document released by environmentalists.
That would ruin Germany's and Britain's expectations for a new global agreement on carbon emissions, the report said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the meeting to agree on targets for greenhouse gas production cuts and a timetable for an agreement on emissions reduction that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, AP said. The Kyoto Protocol, which runs through 2012, is an agreement between developed nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
But unattributed comments on a draft summit communiqué suggest the White House has serious reservations, the AP news report said. Greenpeace attributed the comments to U.S. officials and said they were given to the group by an undisclosed third party, AP said.
"The U.S. still has serious fundamental concerns about this draft statement," the notes said, according to AP. "The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple 'red lines' tin terms of what we simply cannot agree to."
The document claims that the White House is 'fundamentally opposed' to many of the European objectives.
The 27 European Union members have agreed on a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The cut would rise to 30% if a broader international pact can be made, the AP said. See MarketWatch's special report on global warming.
At the June 6-8 Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm, on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, Germany's Merkel wants to win agreements for a global cut in emissions of 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, as well as commitments to energy-efficient strategies, the news agency said. 
Myra P. Saefong is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
No comments:
Post a Comment