Bush's 'Trojan Horse'

Europe Reacts with Reserve to US Climate Plan

US President George W. Bush seems confident that his climate change initiative will find broad support. But the first reactions out of Europe have been far from positive. Her aids are preparing for a failure of climate talks at the G-8 summit.

Going his own way on climate change: "The US's new, so-called 'climate strategy' is really just a strategy for hindering climate protection."

REUTERS

Going his own way on climate change: "The US's new, so-called 'climate strategy' is really just a strategy for hindering climate protection."

United States President George W. Bush has expressed confidence that Angela Merkel will warm to the plan he announced on Thursday to battle climate change, but in Berlin, the German chancellor's top G-8 negotiator is preparing for the strong possibility that negotiations over binding emissions targets among G-8 member countries could collapse at Heiligendamm.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, which will hit the newsstands on Saturday, Bush said he was confident that Merkel would endorse his drive to combat climate change. Bush also rejected speculation that the climate change negotiations in the run-up to next week's G-8 summit in German Baltic Sea resort had driven a wedge between US-German relations.

The comments in the interview came one day after Bush presented his new strategy for battling climate change. The US wants to initiate a series of meetings between the biggest industrialized countries and the developing nations with the greatest economic growth and increases in climate change-causing carbon dioxide emissions, led by China and India.

The Bush administration's official line is that new technologies, and not mandatory emissions curbs, will play the decisive role in reducing greenhouse gases. The president also indirectly criticized Germany's 2000 decision to phase out nuclear energy in the country by 2021. Under its coalition agreement with its junior government partner, the center-left Social Democrats, Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats have agreed to maintain the phaseout policy. "If you're truly interested in cleaning up the environment, or interested in renewable sources of energy," Bush said, taking a jab at Germany, "the best way to do so is through safe nuclear power."

'THE EXPECTATIONS WERE EXCESSIVE'

In an interview with Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung, Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief G- 8 negotiator, Bernd Pfaffenbach, says it is impossible to rule out that Berlin's negotiations on climate change could collapse.

SZ: On the issue of climate change, it looks as though the US and Germany are moving farther away, rather than closer to, each other.

Pfaffenbach: It is true that there is no common position here. But it is also true that excessive expectations were stoked. The chancellor never wanted to make the issue as big of a focal point as it has become.

SZ: The US now has a new proposal on the table that would strip the United Nations of its responsbility for the fight against climate change.

Pfaffenbach: The USA itself is disputing the idea that that is its intention. But if it were actually true, then that is a red line that the chanceller would never cross. UN leadership on climate change is non- negotiable for us. On the other hand, if the Americans are able to establish a common position between the industrial and developing nations, then that would make absolute sense.

SZ: Is it still even possible for anything but a formal, face- saving compromise to come out of this summit?

Pfaffenbach: The question is justified. If it actually comes to the point where we have to abandon our two cardinal demands, then we will say no. The first is our adherence to the UN and the second is that we will not accept any watering down of scientific findings about climate change.

SZ: Is it possible that the summit will collapse -- at least on the question of climate change?

Pfaffenbach: I hope not, but I wouldn't rule that out.

But Merkel isn't as pleased with Bush's proposal as he might like to think. She greeted the proposal but stressed that there was still much work to be done so that concrete formulations could be made at Heiligendamm. "What is very important for me, for us (the European Union) is that the whole process be overseen by the United Nations," Merkel said. "I absolutely see movement on the issue." Nobody, she said, can get around the fact that climate change is a reality and that it is being caused by human activity.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, however, offered clear criticism of Bush, who negotiators are refusing to back Merkel's calls for binding emissions cuts. "The US has a special responsibility as a large emitter of pollutants," Barroso said. "It's clear that we need a more ambitious position from the USA." Barroso, who will be taking part in the summit at Heiligendamm, also defended Europe's calls for binding emissions cuts. "The USA is putting its emphasis on market mechanisms in the battle against climate change -- and justifiably so," he added. "But market mechanisms can only function if there are binding targets."

In light of the current US position, Barroso said he didn't expect there would be an agreement on any concrete climate protection guidelines at Heiligendamm. "But I hope the USA will see the meeting as an opportunity for the G-8 summit to make a contribution to the UN's multilateral climate protection system." He said the summit must be used as a starting point for the next round of UN climate protection negotiations to be held at the end of 2007 in Bali -- negotiations aimed at finding a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocols, which expires in 2012. Barroso also said that the Bush administration's current position will have little future support -- even in the US.

Jürgen Trittin, who heads the German Green Party in parliament, also took a strong stance against Bush's initiative. "The US's new, so-called 'climate strategy' is really just a strategy for hindering climate protection," Trittin told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Without the participation of the countries most affected by climate change, Bush just wants to "sit down together with the biggest polluters, in order to delay any binding emissions reductions targets for as long as possible."

Meanwhile, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats warned in the Braunschweiger Zeitung newspaper that Germany "shouldn't be taken in by this kind of Trojan horse." Washington hasn't set any clear targets or suggested any binding commitments. And in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung, he stated that Bush's proposal cannot be a substitute for negotiations within the framework of the UN.

However, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has welcomed Bush's plan, calling it "a huge step forward." For the first time, Blair told Sky News, "America's saying it wants to be part of a global deal." Blair called for efforts to be made to reach a new international agreement at a climate summit later this year. He said it is imperative that the US as well as China and India be integrated into negotiations.

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