Representatives of the world’s major economies begin meetings in Washington D.C. today in an effort to further international negotiations for a climate change treaty.
These major economies, also are the biggest polluters of greenhouse gases.
Participants include Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the
European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea,
Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to make opening remarks.
Meetings of the major economies began under President Bush. However, Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy for climate change, noted a significant difference between the Obama administration and its predecessors.
"They were not fundamentally looking for an international agreement," he said. "We are looking for an international agreement, and we’re looking for cooperation at a significant, we hope, transformative level."
G8 Meeting Achieves Little
Despite improved leadership from the U.S. presidential administration on climate change, the G8 meeting that concluded on Friday in Sicily, reportedly made little headway in negotiating a new carbon emissions treaty.
The United Nations-led negotiations for a climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol are scheduled for completion in Copenhagen in December. However, that timeline is looking less realistic with each passing month.
Achim Steiner, executive director for the U.N. Environment Program, said that discussions at an environment meeting in Sicily were among the "most frank" he has seen concerning sticking point–targets for emission cuts, funding for developing nations and governance of the treaty.
The only agreement that came from the meeting was a commitment to slow biodiversity loss by 2010.
Read Associated Press coverage of the G8 meeting at the link below.
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