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Straw Forecasts Summit Agreements on Global Warming and Alleviating Plight of Africa

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Foreign secretary Jack Straw last night insisted agreement on climate change was still possible at the G8 summit, despite a warning from President George Bush that he will not sign up to anything which damages the US economy.

As police clashed with anti-capitalism demonstrators in Edinburgh, Mr Straw said he believed that the meeting at Gleneagles would achieve 'satisfactory' outcomes on both tackling global warming and alleviating the plight of Africa.

However, the senior British official leading the preparatory negotiations warned that the final 48 hours in the run-up to tomorrow's summit could be the most difficult.

Sir Michael Jay, the Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, said the so-called 'sherpas' had a series of 'pretty intense discussions' over the weekend as they attempted to thrash out a deal.

'I very much hope that it will be possible to reach a consensus agreement on climate change at Gleneagles,' he told a briefing for foreign journalists.

'I don't want to be over- optimistic because we have got 48 hours to go, and the last 48 hours of negotiations are often the most difficult, but I do sense a desire, if possible, to reach agreement on these issues.'

He said that they hoped to reach an agreement by concentrating on an action plan for dealing with the problem rather than the scientific case for global warming, which the US has consistently disputed.

'The issue of how you characterise the science has always been in some ways the most difficult issue, but in other ways the important issue is going to be can an agreement be reached on a way forward? And I think that is the issue on which one wants to concentrate.'

His comments echoed Environ- ment Secretary Margaret Beckett who said that they did not want to become bogged down in the 'exact theology' of climate change.

'I think it's been clear for some days that negotiations were likely to go to down to the wire and that appears still to be the case,' she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

'What we wanted and what we do still want is to try to end up going in the same direction, that wherever people come from there is a recognition about the urgency of the problem and there is agreement.

'What we hope for is quite an ambitious action plan on steps that the international community can take, and also agreement to try to take forward discussion and dialogue about the future.'

Sir Michael refused to be drawn on suggestions that there could be a separate end-of-summit communique by the other seven leaders they could not get an agreement with Mr Bush.

'I hope there won't be. I am not going to rule in or rule out anything at this stage,' he said.

Mr Straw, meanwhile, sought to play down comments by the US President that he would not accept any sort of legally-binding agreement to cut carbon emissions along the lines of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty which the US refused to sign.

After talks in London with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Mr Straw said that Mr Bush had simply been repeating a long- standing US position.

'That does not however mean that the results of the G8 summit later this week will be unsatisfactory. I believe there will be a satisfactory outcome both in respect of aid to Africa and in respect of climate change,' he said.

Mr Fischer, meanwhile, dismissed reports that Germany was set to block a deal on Mr Blair's so-called 'Marshall Plan' for Africa. 'From our side it is quite clear Prime Minister Blair has set the goal to double the aid for Africa up to 2010. I think we are fully supportive of that,' he said.

'What I can tell you in frank words is that our position is very constructive.'

Source: Western Mail

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