G8 close to climate deal

Published: 1:38PM Thursday July 07, 2005 Source: Reuters

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World leaders look set to reach a deal on climate change at their G8 summit on Thursday but environmentalists will be unimpressed if, as expected, they fail to commit themselves to specific targets.
   
After a day marked by clashes between police and anti-capitalist protesters, leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations will use their first full day at Gleneagles to seek a deal on global warming which brings the world's largest polluters, the Americans, on board.
   
The United States is the only G8 country to have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and has been isolated on the issue. President George W Bush has been slow to accept the world is getting warmer and that mankind is at least partly to blame.
   
Environmentalists have urged the other seven G8 nations to isolate Bush and, if necessary, issue a split communique rather than accept a watered down deal.
   
But British officials say Prime Minister Tony Blair, hosting the summit at a heavily fortified luxury hotel in the rolling hills of central Scotland, is concentrating on getting Washington on board.
   
"We think we are getting close," one British official said on Wednesday, a comment echoed by G8 diplomats.
   
"The final communique will give a clear indication of various actions to be taken that could lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," said Italian diplomat Cesare Ragaglini, who has been at the forefront of negotiations.
   
"We are very satisfied."
   
One G8 source even went so far as to say the exact wording of the final communique had been fully agreed, although it is unlikely to satisfy environmental campaigners.
   
"There is no way we are going to resolve the historic disagreement on Kyoto," said Blair, who has made climate change - along with the alleviation of poverty in Africa - central to Britain's year-long G8 presidency.
   
"Nor is the G8 the place to negotiate a new treaty."
   
Blair will welcome to the talks the leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, whose rapidly expanding economies are contributing to global pollution. The United States says their cooperation is central to any deal. 
   
Oil price worries
   
The world economy will also dominate Thursday's talks at this plush golf resort, with record oil prices the main concern.
   
Oil prices hovered near record levels on Wednesday despite expectations the leaders are set to make an official appeal for more stable prices and more freedom for oil companies to invest in oil-rich countries.
   
There are no plans to include any comment on currencies in the economic communique.
   
G8 leaders will discuss foreign policy issues, particularly the Middle East, although they are not expected to make any major announcements.
   
Following five days of pop concerts, demonstrations and sporadic violent protests on Scotland's streets which have focused public attention on the G8 like never before, there are no anti-G8 protests planned on Thursday.
   
However, police will be on the lookout for repeats of Wednesday's clashes, when officers charged at demonstrators to push them away from a steel fence surrounding the summit centre.
   
Police have arrested around 100 people for public order offences in the area in the last 24 hours.
   
Much of the demonstrators' anger stems from the failure of the world's rich countries to alleviate poverty in the developing world, particularly in Africa.
   
That will be the focus of Friday's talks, when anti-poverty campaigners will urge the G8 to double aid to Africa to $50 billion a year, open markets to African goods and cancel debt.
   
In a speech in London on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged G8 leaders to make bold steps towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
   
"If current trends persist, some of the poorest countries will not be able to meet many - or perhaps any - of the Goals by 2015," he said.
   
"Considering how far we have come, such a failure would be a tragic missed opportunity."

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