Political and business leaders made signs that lead to more certainty about commitments to curb greenhouse gases after 2012, when the first Kyoto period expires. The EU and Japan aligned their positions on a post-Kyoto deal, while a senior US adviser confirmed cooperation on a framework. At the same time, business leaders have urged for action.

A senior US climate adviser said on the eve of a G8 summit, he believed it was possible to find a way forward in negotiating a follow-up framework agreement to the Kyoto protocol. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol runs out 31 December 2012.

Speaking a day before leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) meet in Heiligendamm, Germany, the adviser told reporters that Washington's latest climate change plans were not separate from United Nations efforts in the same field.
"Specifically, the issue before us is can we define a process for creating a new framework post-2012 when Kyoto expires? I think the answer is going to be 'yes'," said James Connaughton, a senior climate adviser to US President George W. Bush.

Responding to criticism that Bush's new climate change strategy by-passed the United Nations, he said this was not true.

Washington's proposals "feed into the UN process," he said. "It was never anyone's intention to have a separate process. The US is a party to the UN's framework convention on climate change. That is the forum where we would take action together on climate change."

Meanwhile the EU and Japan agreed at a bilateral summit ahead of the G8 meeting that Global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by at least half by 2050.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a statement that the EU and Japan were committed to take strong leadership towards an agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions after 2012.
The deal should include all major emitting countries, the leaders said, but stressed that the agreement must be "fair, flexible, effective and comprehensive."

Developed economies have to play a leadership role in tackling climate change, the summit statement read, while noting that the "efforts of developed countries will not be sufficient and that new approaches for fair contributions by other countries are needed."
The statement also called on developing countries to make a fair contribution to the effort and said discussions for a post-2012 agreement should be completed as soon as possible, but did not set a date.
"Summit leaders are united in the view that a long-term goal for reducing global GHG (greenhouse gas) emission by half or more by the year 2050 needs to be established," the statement said. It did not give a base year for the reduction in emissions to be calculated.

The leaders agreed that the G8 summit could serve to support the ongoing UN process on a post-2012 deal on climate change, which should conclude "as early as possible to avoid a gap after 2012."

Japanese PM Abe has also attempted to take the initiative on climate change with his own Cool Earth 50 idea, and Japanese officials have criticised European plans for setting targets without first getting many of the major emitters on board

However, the US has been resisting language in draft summit statements committing the Group of Eight countries to explicit targets. US President George Bush last week presented a plan for moving talks on a post-2012 deal forward by holding talks among the world's 15 biggest emitters, which critics have denounced as an attempt to sideline the UN process.

The German presidency has been seeking a statement on climate change where the world's eight biggest economies commit to limiting global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius and reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally to 50 per cent below 1990 levels.

Business leaders in Berlin supported the EU's and Japan's position, by issuing a statement calling upon G8 countries to "maintain continuity in the legal frameworks underpinning the carbon market."

"The business community is ready to take the necessary action," the statement read, urging the UN summit on climate change in December this year to agree that a global arrangement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be in place by 2009.

The statement was issued by 21 organisations, among them the European Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the EU corporate leaders group on climate change, the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change.

"Any delay in establishing the future policy frameworks will exacerbate the environmental and societal costs of climate change," the business leaders said.

The summit of Bali later this year could see the beginning of official talks on a Post-Kyoto-1 treaty.