Differences between the United States and other parties might hinder the on-going Major Economies Meeting on Energy Safety and Climate Change from reaching long-term goals, a U.S. representative hinted Wednesday.
"We're not trying to pick a number (of issues) for long-term goals but just to accelerate the process" in efforts to combat climate change, said Boyden Gray, U.S. special envoy to the EU.
He was speaking soon after the climate change meeting was kicked off at the East West Center in Honolulu. As a host of the meeting, the United States hopes to show the world it really does want to do more to address global warming.
At the meeting, high-ranking officials from some of the world's biggest economies are expected to find ways to reduce greenhouse gases and slow global warming without stopping development. Participating countries include the United States, Japan, France, Britain, China, India and Brazil.
Some Europeans had threatened to boycott the Honolulu meeting until the United States agreed to a roadmap in a last-minute compromise at the Bali talks last month. The Indonesia conference launched negotiations to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and is not supported by the United States.
The Bush administration launched the Honolulu meeting in a bid to get participating countries to agree to "binding market-based and voluntary measures" to save the world from climate catastrophe.
Issues to be discussed are "a long-term global goal for greenhouse gas reduction that's consistent with economic development objectives," according to James Connaughton, Chairman of White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The work in Honolulu and at other meetings this year will be essential for completing the work by 2009, he said.
But Gray downplayed hopes for quick results, saying it would be"premature" to predict the outcome of the Honolulu meeting.
Gray hinted at a press conference that the meeting, instead of achieving concrete results, would leave some difficult issues for follow-up meetings because of possible failure to resolve the differences.
Preparations were under way to hold another meeting of its kind in Paris in April, he said.
"We hope there perhaps will be another major economies meeting" for participants to defuse their differences, Gray said, adding that the meeting would "work out potential conflicts."
Any document such as a leaders' declaration to be developed from the meeting would be only "a principle short-term goal," he noted.
Source: Xinhua
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