It was striking just how angry British and other European negotiators sounded after having to sit through George Bush's 'Major Emitters' conference at the end of last week. The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill talked to one senior European diplomat who described the event as "a total charade". John Ashton, Britain's special envoy on climate change went on the record as saying: "It is striking here how isolated the US has become on this issue".
British officials weren't talking like that a few months ago. At Tony Blair's last G8 summit, at Heiligendamm in June, his aides were busily spinning the common statement agreed with President Bush, as a "breakthrough". But there had been no real change in the Bush position then and it remains unaltered now. He recognizes that global warming is real and very bad, but his prescription for dealing with the problem is to leave it to individual nations working to their own voluntary targets. The difference now is that British officials feel freer to say what they really think about that approach.
The two-day Washington conference was principally a photo-opp for the president to "show leadership" by making a speech about "a historic undertaking" to combat global warming. There were no new ideas, and certainly no sign the US will agree to a successor to the Kyoto agreement, involving mandatory emissions targets and an international carbon-trading system.
On the contrary, American officials seemed to dig in their heels, despite the fact they had only Australia for support. No wonder most of the other ministers and experts present were irritated about having had to make the trip.
The Bush administration's ideological aversion to regulatory frameworks on the horizon was demonstrated while the Washington conference was under way. New figures emerged that showed the number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions of polluters by the Environmental Protection Agency has plummeted by over a third in George Bush's watch. The number of civil lawsuits against industries who refuse to settle environmental cases is down 70 % since 2002. In effect the EPA has been handcuffed as a regulatory agency.
Some states, like California, are ignoring Washington and setting their own mandatory emissions targets, but without national leadership, the effect of such regulations will be diluted. All this is very familiar from the past seven years. What has changed is that the British government, under Gordon Brown, is less willing to be polite about it.
