Word: bonneli
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...BONN: The momentum building behind Gerhard Schroeder, the charismatic centrist candidate for chancelor of Germany?s opposition Social Democrats, has Helmut Kohl?s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) battling to reposition itself ?- and journalists reaching for the Tony Blair analogy...
...Which is certainly tempting. Schroeder's experience fits well with Europe?s new-left politics of the ?90s, in which leaders of traditional social-democratic parties such as Blair and Lionel Jospin implement a center-right economic program. But as TIME?s Bonn bureau chief Jordan Bonfante warns, the analogy has its limits: ?While Schroeder would like nothing more than to be likened to Blair, the major difference is that the Christian Democrats are not the Tories,? says Bonfante. ?Where Blair faced a decrepit and unpopular party, the CDU is still a strong and vigorous political force.? And Chancellor Kohl...
...Senate disagreed. Swayed by economic arguments, and also by the fact that emission levels in developing nations are rising rapidly, it declared unanimously in August that it would never ratify a treaty that let developing countries avoid some sacrifices. At a pre-Kyoto workshop in Bonn in October, the so-called G77 group--77 developing nations--along with China, thumbed its collective nose at the U.S. by signing on to the European plan...
Indeed, many delegates to the Bonn meeting are offended that the U.S. is making any demands at all, considering how little it has done to fight the greenhouse effect. In fairness, while the European Union has taken the problem more seriously, some of its success was due to political accident. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, for example, allowed Germany to shut the former East Germany's most antiquated factories. And in England, the declining power of coal miners' unions enabled factories to switch to cheaper but less polluting fuels they'd long favored anyway...
Still, the anti-U.S. sentiment in Bonn last week wasn't universal. Declared Meg McDonald, Australian Ambassador for the Environment: "We think it's better to do what's realistic... than have unrealistic targets which are never reached." And although Raul Estrada-Oyuela of Argentina, chairman of the Bonn session, criticized the U.S. position as "very modest," he was "impressed by the fact that Clinton chose to make the offer himself. That is encouraging." Estrada-Oyuela warned other representatives against reacting impulsively and said the measures proposed by the U.S. would have to be analyzed carefully before action could...