EU’s climate change drive postponed

EU efforts to forge a global alliance to combat climate change have been put off to the G8 summit in June, after failure to reach agreement at the EU-US summit on Monday (30 April).

Leaders from the leading eight industrialised countries will meet in the north German seaside resort of Heiligendamm on 6-8 June, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as chair of the G8, will try to negotiate a common approach to tackle climate change ahead of the next round of UN-sponsored international negotiations in Bali in December.

Following the EU-US summit in Washington, DC, Merkel played down the differences between the two sides, saying that leaders had agreed that climate change is an urgent problem.

"I think this is where we should be clear about the glass being half full instead of half empty," she said.

The summit could not reconcile the EU’s insistence that binding targets for emissions reduction and carbon trading are the way forward and the US’ focus on new technologies.

Much of the focus of the EU-US summit was instead on economic ties. EU and US leaders announced that Günter Verheugen, the European commissioner for enterprise and industry and Allan Hubbard, US presidential economic advisor, will co-chair a Transatlantic Economic Council, which will guide efforts to harmonise rules for doing business on both sides of the Atlantic.

The two men will set goals for future summits, monitor progress and bring together business representatives and legislators from the EU and US. They are expected to meet at least once a year.

"It is a recognition that the closer the United States and EU become, the better off our people become," US President George W. Bush said following the meeting.

The two sides agreed to improve co-operation in the medical, cosmetics, automobile, chemical and electronics sectors. There was also agreement to work on risk assessment, secure trade, intellectual property rights, financial markets, investment and innovation.

EU efforts to forge a global alliance to combat climate change have been put off to the G8 summit in June, after failure to reach agreement at the EU-US summit on Monday (30 April).