AUSTRALIA:Bush and Howard's conversion to green evangelism may owe more to calculation than conviction, write Andrew Wardand Peter Smith
Throughout most of his presidency, George Bush has been cast as the villain scheming to thwart international efforts to combat climate change. This week in Sydney, however, he is playing a less familiar role.
The US president has come to the regional Apec summit with climate change near the top of his agenda, while other member countries are ganging up to resist his calls for action.
Mr Bush shifted his position on climate change in June, when he committed the US to a long-term cut in carbon emissions and vowed to help find a replacement for the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gases before it expires in 2012.
This week's meeting of Pacific Rim nations marks the first test of his ability to play a leadership role in tackling global warming, three weeks before a summit on the issue in Washington.
Mr Bush has teamed up with Australian prime minister John Howard to push for an Apec declaration on climate change that would establish a strategy for dealing with the problem.
Apec has the potential to become an important forum for debate on the issue because the group includes six of the world's 10 largest carbon emitters: the US, China, Russia, Japan, Canada and South Korea.
Any agreement this week is likely to be vague and non-binding, but Mr Bush believes it could pave the way for progress towards more concrete measures in Washington this month.
Mr Bush has invited 12 of the world's biggest carbon emitting nations - including seven Apec members - to Washington in search of consensus over a long-term goal for cutting greenhouse gases.
The meeting is part of the administration's effort to play an intermediary role between developed and developing countries in negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto treaty.
However, many governments and environmental groups are suspicious of US motives, fearing that Washington is seeking to undermine the UN's leadership of the Kyoto process and water down the emissions cuts favoured by most European countries.
The US and Australia refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty because of its failure to deal with emissions from the developing world. In a joint press conference with Mr Howard yesterday, Mr Bush said any future international agreement must include large developing nations. "Let's make sure that countries such as China and India are at the table as we discuss the way forward," he said.
"Otherwise, I suspect, if they feel like nations are going to cram a solution down their throat and not give them a voice on how to achieve a common objective, they'll walk."
However, some developing Apec countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, have scoffed at the idea of the US and Australia lecturing them on climate change.
Rafidah Aziz, Malaysia's trade minister, said the two countries' absence from the Kyoto treaty robbed them of moral authority and insisted the UN, not Apec, was the proper forum for finding a solution.
Critics argue that the sudden conversion of Mr Bush and Mr Howard to environmental evangelists owes more to political calculation than genuine conviction.