Barack Obama and EU 'clash over climate change'

The European Union has clashed with Barack Obama's administration over climate change amid fears negotiations on regulating greenhouse gases could break down, according to reports.

By Chris IrvinePublished: 8:16AM BST 16 Sep 2009

The disagreement focuses on the way national carbon reduction targets would be counted. While Europe wants to retain systems set up under the current Kyoto Protocol, America wants to replace it with a system of its own.
The US is pushing for each country to set its own emissions rules and decide how to meet targets target rather than an international system.

Kyoto has remained a delicate issue in the US, ever since George W Bush's administration rejected signing the climate change treaty, while the country has not ratified a major international environmental treaty since 1992. European officials had hoped while the Obama administration may be reluctant to embrace Kyoto, they could at least use it as a framework for a new agreement.
Europe is reportedly reluctant to publicly criticise the Obama administration, partly because he has engaged them in climate change discussion in a way his predecessor did not, but they are allegedly privately worried that America's reluctance could derail the Copenhagen summit in December. The Denmark meeting has been billed as the last chance to save the planet from a temperature rise of 3.6F (2C).
Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General admitted that negotiations had stalled and needed to "get moving", ahead of a UN climate change summit that will be attended by almost 100 heads of government in New York next week.
"We are deeply concerned that the negotiation is not making much headway [and] it is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will and leadership," he said.
There are now concerns that should Kyoto be scrapped, it could be half at least five years before a new proposal is in place, but according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), world emissions need to peak by 2015 to give any chance of avoiding a rise.
"If we end up with a weaker framework with less stringent compliance, then that is not so good for the chances of hitting 2C", A European official told The Guardian.
"In Europe we want to build on Kyoto, but the US proposal would in effect kill it off. If we have to start from scratch then it all takes time. It could be 2015 or 2016 before something is in place, who knows."