Quite frankly, the reference to "ambitious and attainable" targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions by Harlan Watson, the State Department's senior climate negotiator, are not at all encouraging. In his recent comments about the European Union's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% from 1990 levels by 2050, Wilson was clearly setting the stage for less aggressive U.S. and global targets.

According to a report in the Washington Post from last week's U.N. climate talks in Vienna, Watson concluded that agreeing to meet the E.U.'s goal of a 50 percent reduction  would "be a very tough target to meet."

Watson added:

Targets are useful if they're reasonably ambitious and attainable, but we don't believe that just making up numbers is a particularly useful exercise.

So what does this administration think is a useful exercise?

I guess we'll see later this month when the Bush Administration convenes its own climate talks in Washington D.C.

The first of those meetings is planned for Sept. 27-28 in Washington, when 15 countries, the European Union and the United Nations will meet to formulate a process for achieving Bush's goal. The invited countries — which include Russia, China, India, Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil — have 64 percent of the world's population, produce 90 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, consume 76 percent of the world's annual primary energy supply, and account for 82 percent of the global economy, according to U.S. statistics.

The crux, of course, will the debate about "aspirational goals" versus mandatory caps on emissions.

Stay tuned for news from Washington. Let's hope the meetings are more than just the first few steps of a long drawn out waltz.

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

Popularity: 8%