US aims to ease criticism in climate by active posture
Updated: 2008-01-31 23:18
Upset by the US refusal to deal with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Bali, Indonesia, the European Union (EU) even threatened to boycott the Hawaii meeting.
Humberto Rosa, chief delegate from Portugal, which held the rotating EU presidency, warned that if the world major countries including the United States make no compromise on limiting carbon emissions, the EU would boycott the Hawaii meeting.
Huang Jing, former senior fellow in the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank in the United States, believed the Bush administration's move has reflected at least that the energy and environmental issues have drawn attention from the US policy makers.
"I tend to see the increasingly 'active' involvement of the United States in the global effort to secure energy supply and improve environment is a positive signal," Huang told Xinhua.
The US government and people have realized that it takes a global effort to address these global issues and therefore Washington began to be seriously interested in others' opinions, views, and approaches, Huang said.
But as the biggest energy consumer and polluter, what the United States is attempting to do is far from enough. "As the world's No. 1 superpower, the US needs to play a leading role in such a global effort," Huang said.
Former US Vice President Al Gore also urged the US policy makers to change laws, not just change "light bulbs" in tackling global warming.
"In addition to changing the light bulbs, it is far more important to change the laws and to change the treaty obligations that nations have," said the climate campaigner last week, in apparent reference to what he considers as the Bush administration's reluctance to initiate legislation on environmental control.
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