Leaders to meet about tackling global warming
September 24, 2007
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../709240370/1009BY CHARLES J. HANLEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Al Gore and the leaders of about 80 nations converge on the United Nations today for a summit on global warming and what to do about it.
The unprecedented meeting comes just days after U.S. scientists reported that melting temperatures this summer shrank the Arctic Ocean's ice cap to a record low.
"I expect the meeting on Monday to express a sense of urgency in terms of negotiating progress that needs to be made," said Yvo de Boer, the United Nations climate chief.
President George W. Bush, who has long opposed negotiated limits on the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, will not participate in the day's meetings, but plans to attend a gathering of key players tonight hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
On Thursday and Friday, Bush plans to host his own two-day climate meeting in Washington, limited to 16 so-called major emitter countries, the first in a series of such gatherings that environmentalists fear may undercut the global UN negotiating process.
Today's event, designed to build political momentum for December's annual climate treaty conference in Bali, Indonesia, is to feature Schwarzenegger as one opening speaker, representing local governments worldwide.
The Republican governor and his Democratic-led legislature have pioneered state-level greenhouse-gas caps in the United States, with a law phasing in mandated 30% cuts in vehicle carbon dioxide emissions starting in 2009.
Gore, the climate campaigner and former Democratic vice president, is to be a luncheon keynote speaker, and international leaders like Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are to address sessions on such topics as ways to cut emissions and how to pay for them.
The Bush administration has shown no sign of ending its opposition to internationally mandated targets under a binding treaty.
At the Washington meeting, the Bush administration likely will advocate "some kind of vague aspirational voluntary stuff," said David Doniger, a veteran climate campaigner with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. "That will interfere with the serious discussion of limits."