Leading Countries Want Treaty Limiting Greenhouse Gases, but Will U.S. Join Them?

HONOLULU — Leaders of some of the world's biggest economies are pushing for an international treaty that could require large countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 in the fight against global warming.

But whether the United States — the world's biggest polluter by most measures — will agree to such stringent mandatory measures remains up in the air.

After two days of closed-door meetings at an international summit on climate change here, negotiators from the world's 17 biggest economies did not set any firm targets for cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. Together, the countries emit more than 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.

However, they did agree to keep working toward such goals as they develop a new international treaty on climate change by the end of next year.

"There are some positions (that) are not shared by everyone," Matthias Machnig, secretary of Germany's ministry for the environment, said after the meetings. "But one thing is very clear: We all have a responsibility, because the public wants action. The public wants answers."

The European Union, led by Germany and joined by Canada and Japan, wants the world's biggest economies to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050 and also set midterm goals to reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

To reach such goals, countries would have to wean themselves off of coal and oil, develop new energy technologies, dramatically increase energy conservation measures and possibly expand the use of nuclear power. Ultimately, that could lead to higher energy prices for consumers and tougher environmental regulations for companies.

So far, the Bush administration has opposed mandatory emission requirements, saying instead that it favors voluntary standards set on a country-by-country basis. Administration officials say they're skeptical that mandatory goals can be reached and that they could cause major harm to the already fragile economy.

The United States is the only major country that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which requires countries to cut their global emissions.

But the Bush administration's position seems to be slowly changing, diplomats from other countries say.

Last month, the United States did agree with more than 180 other countries to participate in developing a United Nations-brokered treaty the replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Under the U.N. framework, the countries pledged to come up with a new treaty by 2009, hammering out details along the way at meetings like the one held here.

And after wrapping up the Hawaii meetings late Thursday, Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States was giving "serious consideration" to the latest proposals from Europe, Japan and Canada.

Connaughton added that the U.S. is willing to enter into an agreement containing binding commitments, but only if other big countries also are willing to do so.

In a briefing with reporters, Connaughton didn't say which countries he was referring to. But in the past, the United States has been concerned that China, India and Brazil could be exempt from emissions caps or face less stringent ones because they're still considered developing countries.

The latest U.S. moves won praise from delegates from other countries.

"The position of the United States is changing, and we welcome this," said Brice LaLonde, France's ambassador for climate change. "Of course we are waiting for the next step, which would be that the United States will also have a goal in reducing its greenhouse gases, joining in that way all developed countries."

Germany's Machnig agreed.

"It's very important to have an international (agreement) with mandatory targets under the umbrella of the U.N.," he said. "Hopefully we made a step forward here."

With a new president taking office in 2009, and bills already pending in Congress that could require mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, it's only a matter of time before the United States joins other major countries in setting mandatory requirements for emissions cuts, LaLonde predicted in an interview.

"The credibility of the United States is going to be linked by what (it) does," he said.

The relative cordiality of the Hawaii meetings was a sharp contrast to last month's United Nations climate change meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

There, the United States was publicly booed and criticized for rejecting mandatory emissions goals and not doing more to address global warming.

"For my own part this was among the most substantive, among the most constructive and among the most positive of discussions I have had on the subject of climate change," Connaughton said. "We went into the very difficult issues, we did not skirt around them ... and I think we have a very solid and clear agenda in front of us."

Participants in the Hawaii meetings plan to meet again in a few months to continue discussions leading up to United Nations negotiations throughout 2009.