President George Bush met with European Union Leaders on Monday to discuss what should be done about the "urgent" matter of global warming.Other than defining global warming and climate change as a serious issue, President Bush's meeting with E.U. leaders at the White House on Monday did not produce any productive remedies on what should be done about this growing international issue.
German Chancellor Merkel said she prefers to look at the glass as being half full instead of half empty when discussing how this meeting went on Monday. Chancellor Merkel assessed her meeting with President Bush and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso as being positive. Chancellor Merkel currently holds the rotating presidencies of the EU and the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations.
Earlier in the day, 400 of the world's leading climate change experts met in Bangkok during the start of week-long discussions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN's leading authority on global warming. The goal of this third session is to come up with a master blueprint on how to limit the worst causes of global warming. However, there seems to be a great divide in how this blueprint should look. Also, there was no mention on whether Al Gore would be attending this meeting or not.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, Presidents Bush and Barroso along with Chancellor Merkel issued a joint statement regarding energy security and global warming. All three leaders sang in unison about the need for "urgent, sustained, global action" to battle global warming.
"We are determined to ensure access to affordable, clean, and secure sources of energy to underpin sustainable global economic growth and to protect our environment," said a joint statement issued by the White House after the talks.
"Tackling the challenge of energy security will also require unprecedented international cooperation" on energy, it said.
Chancellor Merkel also said these three world leaders agreed on further US-EU talks regarding alternative-fuel standards. These talks may not take place until sometime next year. These three leaders also agreed on plans to talk further about global warming during the G-8 summit meeting to be held in Germany this June.
Chancellor Merkel went on to say that a 'proper agenda' needs to be set for UN talks on the environment in December on the Indonesian island of Bali.
President Bush noted that no viable solution to global warming will be found unless major developing countries like China and India are included, but President Bush seemed to indicate the White House is still going to chart their own course on global warming.
President Bush said each country will have to find a way to deal with greenhouse gases by coming up with their own internal strategy that leads to a reduction in these gases.
Earlier in the year, President Bush called for a 20 percent reduction in gasoline use over the next ten years, and with the price of gas where it is today, this goal may be reached even sooner.
The EU member countries met in March and they called for a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020. This 20 percent reduction will be based on 1990 emission levels. Germany;however, wants to be even more aggressive because they are calling for 40 percent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Chancellor Merkel said that if developed countries who have the technology to effectively reduce greenhouse gases doing nothing; then it will be a hard sell to tell the other less technological countries that they must do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The closing note of this White House meeting included statements about building clean coal plants and exploring carbon dioxide "capture and storage" technology for reducing harmful emissions.
Read more about this meeting at Yahoo News
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