G8 Will Be "Climate Litmus Test" For US - UNEP Head - Reuters

[hatrack]

NAIROBI - A meeting of rich nations next month in Germany will be a "litmus test" of how the United States plans to help the world fight climate change, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Tuesday.

The United States, the world's biggest polluter, said this month it would continue to reject targets or plans to cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming that it fears could jeopardise economic growth. Germany, which hosts leaders of the G8 industrialised countries next month, wants them to agree to halve carbon emissions by 2050, and UNEP boss Achim Steiner said no one should prejudge Washington's position as the pressure mounts.

"There is no option but to move forward, and I think that is the debate now taking place in the US as a whole, but also in the US administration: how to bring US initiatives to the table that can help," Steiner told a news conference. "We are just few days away from a major litmus test of that. That will be a moment we will see how the US administration sees itself playing that constructive and positive role in building an international consensus."

Amid growing public concern about climate change and damning scientific reports on its effects, nations remain in gridlock in talks to widen action to brake warming beyond the end of the first period of the UN's Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42085/story.htm

[Warpy]

1. For most of us, the real question will be

whether or not they manage to keep Stupid sober this time.

[Nihil]

2. Bet the litmus test shows red rather than blue!

In other words, the Republican strategy of "F*ck the world, we want
all your money NOW" will be strictly adhered to, despite the fact
that it is literally costing the earth.

The chance of a Gore-like response is marginally lower than ...
... bum ... can't think of anything that unlikely to compare it to ...