In a democracy turning into a “mediacracy”, which is more important?

In the coming week, we might get the answer. In Heiligendamm the eight most powerful countries in the world will discuss global issues. The most important topic on the agenda is climate change, mostly as the result of the pressure from EU Member States the UK and Germany. Being the president of both the EU Council and the G8, German chancellor Angela Merkel is putting a lot of effort into reaching a real commitment regarding emissions reduction. Not only with the eight G8 countries (Japan, Canada, the US, Russia, Italy, France, the UK and Germany), but also with the five big developing nations that will also be attending Heiligendamm (China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa).

But the pre-negotiations of the G8 are not very promising. Germany and the US seem to be facing completely the opposite directions regarding climate change. There are two political truths: on one side the European willingness to act rigorously with new policies and measures, on the other hand the US still counting on voluntary actions. Obviously the figures are in favour of the first attitude, but the US, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, still does not want to commit .

While pessimistic messages in newspapers from Merkel could still be explained as ‘increasing the pressure’, the corrected draft of the G8+5 text that was recently published leaves no room for any doubt. The US editors have completely rewritten the draft conclusions, with a hilarious amount of deletions.

Next week we’ll know if Al Gore will defeat Bush this time.

Rolf de Vos

Chief Editor

GreenPrices Newsdesk