- A leaked copy of a document on climate change being drafted
for the G8 summit suggests plans have been watered down.
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- A version of the communique leaked in May treated climate
change as a fact and pledged money to energy projects.
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- In the new version the words "our world is warming"
appear in square brackets, meaning at least one country disagrees, and
all financial pledges have gone.
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- UK Chancellor Gordon Brown said the only version that
mattered would be agreed next month at the G8 summit.
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- He told Sky News: "What actually matters is what
the final communiqué actually says and you will not know what that
says until the world leaders actually get together.
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- 'Disappointing' text
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- "I would've thought the communiqué that we
are talking about will be very different from the final communiqué
after people have their time at Gleneagles."
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- Labour's ex-environment minister Michael Meacher suggested
the US government would not sign up to a document that mentioned global
warming.
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- "Presumably it was taken out because of the Americans,"
he said.
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- The new text was "very disappointing", he added,
saying it was "extraordinary" that doubt was being cast on the
notion the world is getting hotter.
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- 'Intensive negotiations'
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- But a Department for the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) spokesman insisted negotiations on the communiqué
had not finished.
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- "We are all working hard to achieve the best possible
outcome at Gleneagles but we are in intensive negotiations and so we cannot
say exactly what the outcome will be.
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- "As in any negotiation, there are multiple versions
of texts around. What is important to stress is that the only text that
matters is the one we agree at Gleneagles."
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- The earlier version of the communiqué agreed to
provide three or four pots of money for new energy projects.
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- It also proposed a carbon challenge competition to find
ways of combating climate change but the new document contained none of
that.
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- Instead, the latest draft talks more of "market-led"
schemes and "dialogues" over energy efficiency, rather than actual
policy moves by governments.
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- 'International menace'
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- Conservative environment spokesman Oliver Letwin branded
Britain's record on reducing carbon emissions "lamentable".
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- "I cannot see how the prime minister and [Environment
Secretary] Margaret Beckett will succeed in putting climate change at the
top of our G8 presidency if we cannot produce a timely plan for reducing
emissions in the UK."
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- Lib Dem environment spokesman Norman Baker branded George
W Bush the environment's "public enemy number one".
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- "Tony Blair has got no influence on Bush when it
comes to climate change," he added.
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- "Of course we must secure an agreement with the
Americans where we can. However, we must secure a target-based successor
to Kyoto without the US watering it own."
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- Difficult place?
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- Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale described
Mr Bush as "an international menace" and said Mr Blair should
"press on regardless".
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- And Catherine Pearce, of Friends of the Earth, described
the latest draft as "disastrous".
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- "There is not agreement on the science of climate
change. There is no real agreement and commitment in terms of what can
be done to bring down emissions."
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- But she acknowledged that Mr Blair was "in a very
difficult place with the US and the fact that they are not willing to move".
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- © BBC MMV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4102144.stm
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