Praised U.S. commitment to reduce oil consumption
By Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent
BERLIN -- Calling them "humanity's two greatest challenges," German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her opening speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, put climate change and energy security on top of the agenda for her European Union and Group of Eight presidencies.
"We want to give impulses for climate protection, strengthen energy efficiency efforts and raise energy security," Merkel told an audience of chief executives and political leaders Wednesday at the Swiss mountain resort. Her audience included, among others, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, British Petroleum Chief Executive Officer John Browne and Zhang Xiaoqiang, the vice chairman of China's National Development Reform Commission, the government's top economic planning agency.
Merkel, a former environment minister, as of today leads Europe's biggest economy, the 27-member EU and the G8; she used her clout to call on companies and governments of the world to join forces to reduce greenhouse gases in a bid to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change, which are sure to descend onto the world once the yearly temperature increase surpasses 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Merkel praised the commitment issued by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech to cut U.S. oil consumption over the next decade by 20 percent; she also spoke positively about the proposals by the European Commission to set post-Kyoto emission cuts to 30 percent by 2020.
Yet "politics by itself cannot prevent climate change," she said. "We need a binding climate regime that involves all major greenhouse emitters. Of the overall Co2 emissions we (the EU) have 15 percent. Eighty-five percent of those emissions come from somewhere else and the share of Europe is going to go down, so it is a global responsibility."
The German chancellor said energy security was becoming increasingly important for the EU, and said she and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to improve direct communication "in the case of difficulties," a clear reference to the brief interruption of Russian westward oil flow after a gas price row with Belarus.
