WP: U.S. Pressure Weakens G-8 Climate Plan

[quaoar]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601666.html

Global-Warming Science Assailed

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; Page A01

Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary. Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.

Last week, the New York Times reported that a senior White House official had altered government documents to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science on global warming. That official, White House Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Phillip Cooney, left the administration last Friday to take a public relations job with oil giant Exxon Mobil, a leading opponent of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

[Kool Kitty]

1. Well, there goes li'l Georgie,

spendin' more of that famous "political capital" he won in that landslide victory in November. Useless excuse for a human being.

Cooney went to work for Exxon? I thought he already WAS working for Exxon. Now I guess this lying c**t is actually getting a paycheck, instead of just going in the back door and picking up cash in an envelope. When is this country going to wake up?

[kskiska]

2. WP: U.S. Pressure Weakens G-8 Climate Plan

Global-Warming Science Assailed

Friday, June 17, 2005; A01

Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary. Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.

(snip)

The wording of the international document, titled "Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development," will help determine what, if any, action the G-8 countries will take as a group to combat global warming. Every member nation except the United States has pledged to bring its greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who currently heads the G-8 -- is trying to coax the United States into adopting stricter climate controls.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601666.html

[mbperrin]

3. After all, the stupid bastard and his useless family won't have to live

on the same planet as the rest of...say, you know what? He's even stupider than I thought! (And THAT ain't easy!)

[Karmadillo]

4. Climate change plan for G8 summit diluted after Blair's US visit

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=647417

The "plan for action" to tackle climate change for the G8 summit next month has been drastically watered down following Tony Blair's visit to Washington, according to a leaked draft.

The new text has been stripped of commitments to fund programmes that appeared in a previous leak of the communiqué, which was dated 3 May. In the new document, of 14 June, some key phrases appear only in square brackets, indicating that their inclusion is in dispute, while other important sentences have been taken out altogether.

In this week's version, even the phrase "our world is warming" has been placed in square brackets. The sentence, referring to the rise in the earth's temperature: "We know that the increase is due in large part to human activity" has been relegated to square brackets, as has: "The world's developed economies have a responsibility to show leadership."

Catherine Pearce, the international climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "The new text is really attacking the whole science on climate change. The previous text was weak but at least it recognised the science. The US administration has hacked the text to pieces. I just don't know where we can go from here."

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