The scientific debate over many current trans-boundary environmental problems is often heated and frustrating because the problems are very complicated and do not lend themselves to easy solutions. Not surprisingly the G-8 platform of the most wealthy and powerful countries is turning into a talking shop high on rhetoric and low on results. Ever since the Kyoto Protocol was accepted as the basic framework to pursue policy changes to help reduce the dangers of global warming, several rounds of such high profile G-8 Summits have been held. However such annual summits are falling short of the expectations on many counts. What is equally perplexing is the stranglehold of the United States (as the only remaining superpower and leading economic powerhouse) on climate change politics, which is looking ominous given the manner in which it has rejected the call for setting specific targets and a timetable for reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
By refusing to concede on emission reduction targets the US also derides the agenda for sustainable development arrived at during the landmark Rio summit in 1992. That the US is not keen to respect multilateral agreements clearly manifests in its refusal till date to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Washington it may be mentioned remains the only country among the present G 8 not to have done so. The landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol had set specific objectives for reductions in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions of industrialized countries including a number of economies in transition. The US intransigence on this issue was similarly responsible for the breakdown during the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN framework Convention on climate change held a few years back in Bonn. As of today the impasse on the main sticking points such as GHG reduction targets, emissions trading, implementation of GHG reducing activities and issues that were important to developing countries such as capacity building, transfer of technology and financial assistance are yet to be resolved.
While the issues are many, the crux of the matter is on how to get political commitments to cut GHG emissions by specified levels. Unfortunately, the reverse is happening and it so happens that now the US President instead of taking the political initiative is suggesting that the developing countries, particularly India and China, were responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change. This is a reckless statement on the part of Bush and deviates from the real issue. Instead of playing a blame game, the US was expected to rally together a collective effort to deal with the problem. But his negative attitude has only exposed the insincerity of the world’s most powerful country and the man leading it. What the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested as “common but differentiated responsibility” makes more sense as any effort to reduce the impact of global warming will require collective responsibility, both of the developed and developing countries and definitely not Washington’s prescription, for that will spell doom for the future health of planet earth.
