G8 leaders fight over global agreement on climate change

A fierce battle is underway this weekend to rescue a proposed global climate agreement in time for the G8 summit in a fortnight's time in Germany, after sources close to the talks said Washington appeared to be edging away from outright rejection of moves to halt rising world temperatures. It follows the international furor that greeted the leaking of the US negotiating position which appeared to utterly rule out any hope of achieving a breakthrough on a comprehensive climate deal before British Prime Minister Tony Blair leaves office at the end of next month. But as the US came under fire for notes scribbled on a draft communiqué leaked to Greenpeace suggesting it was preparing to torpedo a five-point deal, sources close to the negotiations reported the US position appeared to be shifting after new negotiations on May 25 and 26. It also emerged that it was not only the United States that was posting strong objections to the wording of the communiqué, but Russia as well, while India and China had also expressed their own reservations. It had been hoped that the five-point agreement, which is being negotiated under Germany's presidency of G8, would set out the key principles to allow progress in the United Nations for a treaty to replace the Kyoto agreement when it runs out. Following last week's negotiations in the German town of Heiligendamm between officials, there was broad agreement on three of the five points covering the development of new technologies to combat global warming, measures to help countries adapt and new measures to fight deforestation. The toughest battle, however, has focused on the first two points -- on the establishment of a stabilization goal that would tie signatories to a commitment to limit the global temperature rise to two degrees and the establishment of a global carbon trading market, both of which the US rejects. It was this approach that led an unnamed US negotiator to scrawl in red ink on a draft, understood to come from an earlier round of negotiations: "The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple 'red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to." According to sources close to last week's talks, however, the US position appears to have begun moving since those notes were written. Although the US is understood to be objecting to a German proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2050, sources say there are alternative ways of reaching agreement on the principle of a global stabilization target. John Coequyt, US energy policy specialist at Greenpeace, responsible for the leak, said: "Tony Blair backed up the Bush administration in some really important ways and America has never repaid him. On climate change we have really hung him out to dry. The Americans are pursuing a policy on climate change which is really quite pathetic."