As the curtain fell at the end of the two-day meeting on climate change here Thursday, participants from the world's 16 major economies plus the United Nations seemed to believe that the US-sponsored process had improved the US image on the issue.

The Hawaii meeting is undoubtedly a major event on climate change after the recent UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. Yet, people are still wondering what role the United States will play in post-Bali negotiations.

Image improvement 

To many political analysts, the Hawaii meeting came as an important chance for Washington to mend international fences after it faced sharp criticism in Bali for its less-than-cooperative stance.

"The US has reached the lowest point I've ever seen" when it comes to worldwide perception regarding environmental issues, said Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of Pew Environment Group, are search and advocacy group.

"In the final session of Bali, we were abandoned even by our closest allies," he said.

One major incentive for the Bush administration in hosting the Hawaii meeting, many analysts believed, is to show the world that it really wants to do more to address global warming.

If that is a key objective for the Bush administration, the Hawaii meeting may have achieved the effect, observers noted.

Brice LaLonde, France's ambassador for climate change, said the new US attitude is "a good start", though "we want more" from the United States.

"Now we are seeing that the United States is discussing the matter," he said.

"We welcome this move. Of course we are waiting for the next step, which would be that the United States will also have a goal in reducing its greenhouse gases, joining in that way all developed countries."

"We had a very constructive debate," said Matthias Machnig of the German Environment Ministry.

Key issues remain unsolved 

Participants of the Hawaii meeting called for rapid implementation of the Bali roadmap and the Bush administration said the major economies process is actually supplementing the post-Bali negotiations.

The Bali roadmap is an agreement among more than 180 participating countries to form the world's second climate-change mitigation treaty by the end of 2009, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to cut emissions that expires in 2012.
  
Joe Stanislaw, chief executive officer of the JAStanislaw Group, an advisory firm for investment in energy and technology, said one of the major achievements at the Bali conference is that it finally got the United States to sign up.

Concerns over the US willingness to participate have been high for a long time, as the nation remains the only major industrial country in the world yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, after Australia signed the treaty in December.

Its resistance to embrace mandatory pollution reduction targets has also met with widespread criticism.

While pledging to contribute to the post-Bali talks, the United States defended its stance on the two issues at the Hawaii meeting.

That prompted participating countries at the meeting to urge the Bush administration to take more steps in that direction.

For the moment, however, there are no signs that the US government will change that position soon.

There are even suspicions that the Bush administration's burst of zeal in climate change is a political game to postpone US adoption of mandatory greenhouse emission cuts.
 
(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2008)