All eyes are on the U.S. as environmental ministers from the Group of Eight, the major industrialized countries plus Russia, begin a weekend meeting today in Trieste, Italy, to discuss global warming. U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman indicated today that the Bush administration was rethinking the country’s stance on the issue and did not feel obligated to return to the negotiating table with the same compromises offered by the Clinton administration. The European Union wants countries to meet the bulk of their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting emissions domestically and at the source, rather than paying other countries to drop their emissions or planting forests and crops to absorb emissions. Formal negotiations on climate change will resume in July in Bonn, Germany.
