EU insists on UN climate leadership

The EU is insisting that any global agreement on climate change must come under the aegis of the UN.

At a meeting in Essen on 2 June ahead of the key 7-8 June G8 summit, the EU’s environment ministers agreed that the central goal of the G8 meeting should be to convince the US to join the UN Kyoto negotiations.

The move is a clear signal that the EU is not convinced by the alternative approach proposed last week by US president George W Bush.

Bush’s suggestion that the world’s main polluters should meet and set their own emission targets has been met with scepticism in Europe, with many seeing it as an attempt to start a parallel, competing initiative to the UN-led Kyoto process.

“We all agree that the American strategy must not be allowed to derail the Kyoto process,” German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel said in Essen.

At the meeting in Heiligendamm, German chancellor Angela Merkel wants G8 members to agree that global warming should be kept to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius, to reduce their emissions by 50 per cent of their 1990 level by 2050, and to start work on a global emissions trading scheme.

British prime minister Tony Blair has spoken out in favour of Merkel's climate goals, saying countries “need to agree the elements of a future framework” at the G8.

“This would allow the UN talks to accelerate and reach earlier agreement, so that we have a framework for after Kyoto in place by 2009,” he added.

But Bush’s proposal has support from several non-EU countries including Canada and India, which are against the stringent CO2 caps advocated by the EU.

“No one can just artificially decide on a value and then summon others to follow,” said Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee in reference to the EU objectives.

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