LOOKING TOWARD BALI
By mid-2008, Bush said heads of state of the biggest emitting countries should set a long-term target to fight climate change and that there should be "a strong and transparent system for measuring our progress toward meeting the goal we set."
That drew a muted response from delegates, according to Yvo de Boer, the special U.N. envoy on climate change.
De Boer said he found Bush's speech "encouraging" because it acknowledged the urgency of the issue.
But asked to predict the outcome of the Washington meeting, de Boer replied, "The very strong indication I got is that people said, 'This is a very interesting discussion but we need to continue it after Bali.'"
In fact, delegates applauded when Bush stressed this meeting was meant to lay the groundwork for the Bali conference. Some critics have questioned whether the Bush administration was attempting to get around the U.N. climate process with its own set of meetings.
At the meeting's conclusion, James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and chairman of the conference, described "very vigorous discussion" and said the parties were committed to continuing the talks among the big emitters as a contribution to U.N. climate negotiations.
There was no consensus document. Instead, Connaughton offered a chairman's summary: "I think different participants would emphasize different aspects of the summary so this is merely my attempt to capture the sense of the meeting."
Bush said a long-term goal for reducing global warming was needed but that each nation should design its own strategy. He suggested a global clean-technology fund could be led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, to be financed by global contributions.
The Bali talks will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations' emissions. Its first phase ends in 2012.
