US told to toe line on climate

It's interesting to note just how far Bush is outside of the international consensus when it comes to global warming. Yesterday he attempted to side-step the United Nations policy of achieving a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by stating that he would prefer to rely on free-market mechanisms and technology to solve the problem.

What's fascinating is how few other world leaders are embracing Bush's ideology, even amongst supposed allies.

Britain and Germany yesterday joined forces to warn President George Bush that talks on climate change must take place within a United Nations framework and not in an ad hoc process floated last week by Bush.

'For me, that is non-negotiable,' the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of the need to ensure that climate change negotiations take place within the existing UN framework.

Her remarks were echoed by Hilary Benn, Britain's international development secretary. 'I think it is very important that we stick with the framework we've got,' Benn told The Observer.

So Bush's attempt to form an alternative framework for tackling global warming appears to have been resoundingly rejected by the international community.

Merkel underlined deep European unease with the President when she told Der Spiegel: 'In a process led by the United Nations, we must create a successor to the Kyoto agreement which ends in 2012. But it is important that they flow from the United Nations.'

Benn offered limited support for Bush's declaration as 'some progress'. But he highlighted deep misgivings in Europe at the President's call for a parallel process to the UN that would see the world's biggest carbon emitters 'establish a new framework on greenhouse gases' by the end of next year in time for the expiry of the Kyoto protocol.

'In the end, we have to have one framework for reaching agreement,' Benn said. 'I think that is very clear.'

It's astonishing to find that Bush is not only behind the rest of the world on this issue but he now appears to be behind many American states, eight of whom - along with New York - are currently suing five US power companies for their contribution to global warming.

"If we do not act soon, the steps we will need to take to prevent global warming will be much greater and much harder," says New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

He says the companies - American Electric Power Company, the Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy Inc, and Cinergy Corporation - were chosen because they are the five largest carbon dioxide emitters in the US, operating 174 power plants in 20 states.

"These companies together emit 650 million tons of carbon dioxide each year - 10 percent of the country's carbon dioxide and more than all of the UK," he adds.

The plaintiffs - which also include California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York state, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin - say the federal government has failed to take action on the problem.

I've said it before, but Bush's failure to tackle global warming is on the same scale as Reagan's failure to tackle the Aids epidemic whilst he was in office. Both are scars on their presidencies which, in time, will come to be seen as monumental failures of vision on the part of both men.

However, as the G8 summit approaches it's obvious that Bush can no longer rely on support from even the UK and Germany regarding his policy, which shows just how far outside the loop this short-sighted little man really is.

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