Elevating climate change to the top of the international agenda has been a focal point of Germany's concurrent leadership of the G8 and presidency of the European Union. Just weeks before June's G8 summit in Heiligendamm, U.S. negotiators are weeding out and watering down references to global warming in the meeting's final declaration.

Germany's draft language calls for resolute action to reduce global greenhouse gases and to support the next round of UN climate talks set for December. The draft calls for keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.

According to the BBC, US negotiators have struck a clause saying "climate change is speeding up and will seriously damage our common natural environment and severely weaken (the) global economy … resolute action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions."

The US also objected to language stating "we are deeply concerned about the latest findings confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)" and a commitment to send a "clear message" on international efforts to combat global warming at the next round of UN climate talks set for December. US negotiators also want to delete the draft's call for firm targets for improving energy efficiency in buildings and transport, as well as a call for a global carbon market.

The Bush administration has long been reluctant to make a commitment to curb greenhouse emissions and has resisted any mention of the Kyoto Protocol in international agreements.

Bush to Improve Fuel-Efficency Standards

Nevertheless, even as the US resists being tethered to demanding international agreements, the domestic picture is evolving. President Bush signed an executive order on Monday for new automobile fuel-efficiency standards by the end of 2008. The details still have to be debated in Congress, and Democrats are accusing Bush of stalling. "The president asked his agency heads to share ideas and come up with a plan that is due three weeks before he leaves office," said Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Still, resistance from the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases to international commitments is alive and well. Climate change language was also in the draft statement for the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles -- it didn't make the final cut.

"I think the real objective (of the US negotiators) is not just to keep the lid on and have nothing happen while President Bush is in office, but they are trying to lay landmines under a post-Kyoto agreement after they leave office," Philip Capp -- president of the Washington-based National Environment Trust -- told the BBC.

A spokesperson from the White House Council on Environmental Quality explained the administration's stance by stating "The US continues to lead the global effort on climate change."

Salvaging an Agreement

Those words are unlikely to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has the task of forging a consensus among the leading industrialized nations.

But, she does appear to have an allies in Great Britain and Japan. London has joined Germany to establish a new dynamic for approaching climate change at the summit, while the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is expected to propose a plan to halve global greenhouse gas emissions from current levels by 2050.

Japan is pushing for a new climate protection framework to be in place before Kyoto expires in 2012. Negotiations to extend Kyoto are stalling, and a strong declaration in Heiligendamm could provide a much needed boost for the talks. On the other hand, failure in Germany could delay the process even further, which would risk leaving the post-2012 years with no framework, given the time it would take to negotiate and ratify a replacement for Kyoto.