WTOL.com, Toledo's News Leader, News 11 | Merkel: climate deal needed in Copenhagen
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BERLIN (AP) - Next month's climate summit in Copenhagen must produce a substantial agreement, and failure would set back by years efforts to fight global warming, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday.
Merkel said the European Union has put forward a clear position on fighting climate change, and "we now expect contributions from the U.S.A. and countries such as China and India."
"A failure of the world climate conference in Copenhagen would set back international climate policy by years," Merkel said in a speech to parliament outlining her new government's agenda.
"We cannot afford that," she added. "A substantial political agreement is essential and the condition for an internationally binding ... protocol for the time after 2013. Time is pressing."
The Copenhagen conference, aimed at replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to curb emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming when it expires, starts on Dec. 7.
Merkel indicated that she would attend the meeting if success appeared likely. She did not define what a "substantial political agreement" would entail.
In a speech last week to the U.S. Congress, Merkel placed special emphasis on the need for a climate change accord and said that "we have no time to lose."
Merkel won re-election in September, achieving a majority for a new center-right government after four years in an awkward "grand coalition" of right and left. The conservative's new coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats was sworn in on Oct. 28.
She told lawmakers that its top priority will be overcoming the effects of the economic crisis, and defended plans - which remain vague - to cut and reform income tax starting in 2011 in a bid to stimulate growth.
"I want us to try everything to create quickly and with determination the conditions for new and stronger growth," she said.
Germany's export-dependent economy, Europe's biggest, returned to modest growth in the second quarter and is expected to grow by 1.2 percent in 2010. Still, Merkel warned that the country isn't yet over the crisis.
She said that "the problems will get bigger before things can get better," with unemployment set to rise.
"The full impact of the effects of the crisis will reach us next year," Merkel added, with Germany's budget deficit set to reach 3.5 percent of gross domestic product this year and 5 percent in 2010 - above a European Union-imposed limit of 3 percent.
Merkel said her new government won't introduce a national minimum wage, which she said would be "an obstacle to further employment," or tamper with employees' legal protection from dismissal.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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