As the curtain fell at the end of the two-day meeting on climate
change here Thursday, participants from the world's 16 major
economies plus the United Nations seemed to believe that the
US-sponsored process had improved the US image on the issue.
The Hawaii meeting is undoubtedly a major event on climate
change after the recent UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.
Yet, people are still wondering what role the United States will
play in post-Bali negotiations.
Image improvement?
To many political analysts, the Hawaii meeting came as an
important chance for Washington to mend international fences after
it faced sharp criticism in Bali for its less-than-cooperative
stance.
"The US has reached the lowest point I've ever seen" when it
comes to worldwide perception regarding environmental issues, said
Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of Pew Environment Group,
are search and advocacy group.
"In the final session of Bali, we were abandoned even by our
closest allies," he said.
One major incentive for the Bush administration in hosting the
Hawaii meeting, many analysts believed, is to show the world that
it really wants to do more to address global warming.
If that is a key objective for the Bush administration, the
Hawaii meeting may have achieved the effect, observers noted.
Brice LaLonde, France's ambassador for climate change, said the
new US attitude is "a good start", though "we want more" from the
United States.
"Now we are seeing that the United States is discussing the
matter," he said.
"We welcome this move. Of course we are waiting for the next
step, which would be that the United States will also have a goal
in reducing its greenhouse gases, joining in that way all developed
countries."
"We had a very constructive debate," said Matthias Machnig of
the German Environment Ministry.
Key issues remain unsolved?
Participants of the Hawaii meeting called for rapid
implementation of the Bali roadmap and the Bush administration said
the major economies process is actually supplementing the post-Bali
negotiations.
The Bali roadmap is an agreement among more than 180
participating countries to form the world's second climate-change
mitigation treaty by the end of 2009, which will replace the Kyoto
Protocol, an international agreement to cut emissions that expires
in 2012.
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Joe Stanislaw, chief executive officer of the JAStanislaw Group, an
advisory firm for investment in energy and technology, said one of
the major achievements at the Bali conference is that it finally
got the United States to sign up.
Concerns over the US willingness to participate have been high
for a long time, as the nation remains the only major industrial
country in the world yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, after
Australia signed the treaty in December.
Its resistance to embrace mandatory pollution reduction targets
has also met with widespread criticism.
While pledging to contribute to the post-Bali talks, the United
States defended its stance on the two issues at the Hawaii
meeting.
That prompted participating countries at the meeting to urge the
Bush administration to take more steps in that direction.
For the moment, however, there are no signs that the US
government will change that position soon.
There are even suspicions that the Bush administration's burst
of zeal in climate change is a political game to postpone US
adoption of mandatory greenhouse emission cuts.
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(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2008)
