Climate Change on Plate for Obama at G8

President in Italy for Summit; Economy, Slowdown of Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Dominate Agenda

(CBS/ AP)  Updated 9:43 a.m. EDT

President Barack Obama joined fellow world leaders in Italy Wednesday for talks on threats to global security and stability at a summit where climate change, the global economic crisis, nuclear proliferation and world hunger took top billing.

Group of Eight leaders are emphasizing the need to press on with government measures to stimulate the economy - while also studying ways to wind up those strategies.

That's according to a draft statement on the first day of their annual summit Wednesday in L'Aquila, Italy.

The leaders emphasize that the economic situation "remains uncertain" and pledge to take the necessary steps to return the global economy to strength - including stimulus - both individually and together.

The G8 meetings may lack the intrigue of Mr. Obama's sit-downs earlier in the week with Russia's top leaders, or the emotion of the reception the first black American president surely will get Saturday in Ghana. But they won't lack for ambition as the world's most powerful officials discuss the problems threatening the planet.

Mr. Obama and the leaders of seven other industrialized nations will hold meetings in the picturesque town of L'Aquila, northeast of Rome, before they were to widen their circle to include fast-growing countries like China and India and struggling nations from Africa. In large and small groups, the talks will involve trade, climate change, Iran's nuclear ambitions, food security and other issues.

Mr. Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, met Italian President Giorgio Napolitano after arriving at the stately Quirinale Palace in Rome, a spectacular setting that included a large room with a soaring ceiling, gilded walls and doors and huge chandeliers.

After that meeting, Mr. Obama said he was looking forward to the G8 talks and praised his Italian hosts for being "such good friends" of the United States over the years.

He said the two countries "are working hand in hand in places like Afghanistan to ensure that we're isolating extremists and strengthening the forces of moderation around the world."

Mr. Obama also said he and Napolitano agreed that efforts must continue on "raising standards on financial institutions" to protect against future global economic meltdowns.

He also said it is crucial that world leaders work to ensure that Iran and North Korea don't "take a path" that would widen the arms race on the Korean peninsula and in the Mideast.

Topping the list of G8 discussions are talks on slowing the release of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

A devastating earthquake in L'Aquila in April killed almost 300 people and drove thousands from their homes. Italian Prime Minister Sivio Berlusconi moved the summit here in a show of support, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante.

There are still regular aftershocks here - and with the leaders of almost 40 nations staying here, there's an emergency plan to airlift them out in case there's another serious quake, Plante reports.

Many foreign leaders want the United States to embrace a target of limiting the rise in average planetary temperatures to 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) higher than they were in 1900, before widespread industrialization. Scientists say an increase beyond that could trigger dangerous rises in sea level and other dire problems.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined Wednesday to say whether the administration would endorse the goal. But he suggested it's main focus is what it can accomplish back home with Congress, not with the Group of Eight nations.

"I would say that I think our biggest contribution to this is the steps that were taken by the House," Gibbs said, referring to legislation requiring reductions in greenhouse gases.

Setting goals and achieving them, of course, are different things, and G8 meetings often are known more for high-minded roundtables and photo opportunities than for concrete results. Even before Mr. Obama left Washington, his aides tamped down expectations of breakthroughs at L'Aquila.

Presidential adviser Mike Froman told reporters that it's not quite time for industrialized nations to pull the plug on economic stimulus efforts.

World leaders gathered here will seek a balance between continuing to stimulate sluggish economies and looking for exit strategies, he said.

Froman said there is still uncertainty and risk in the global economy but it's important to return to fiscal sustainability, which would not include government stimulus efforts. Some G8 leaders have urged Mr. Obama to support an end to stimulus efforts soon.

Mr. Obama made a major speech in Moscow after jointly declaring with Soviet President Dmitry Medvedev a desire to find agreement by year's end on a treaty to slash U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles by a third. Barring a breakthrough on climate change, or perhaps new sanctions against Iran, the emotional highlight of Mr. Obama's Italy trip may be his audience Friday with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

The summit here involves an ever-growing numbers of nations beyond the G-8, whose members are the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan. Various meetings will include representatives of Egypt, Turkey, Mexico and several other nations.

[ubrew12]

Among people who are actually PAID for their understanding of climate (climate scientists), AGW is a no-brainer and has been for many years.

Now, thanks to diddling on the right, we may be approaching climate tipping points, beyond which the warming gets beyond our control. Examples of this are unfrozen polar regions absorbing 5 times more sunlight than frozen polar regions, increased water vapor in the atmosphere causing INCREASED radiation trapping and greenhouse effect, warmed ocean waters releasing MORE CO2 into the atmosphere which magnifies the initial problem, and methane released by melting permafrost and bubbling up from warmed underwater methane clasts.

The right is right about one thing: the climate moves in ways largely beyond human control. We should never forget that as we consider what our meager effect, cumulative after 150 years of pushing (which has been to increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 50%), may yet unleash by way of a natural response. If the right thinks the earths response would be somehow containable, then they haven't thought out their own objections to AGW: namely, that earth is difficult to contain.

[biger-e]

by skyk-2009 July 8, 2009 5:19 AM PDT
You are sounding like a member of the Confederate Party here.

you do know that the confederate party were Democrats right?

[ubrew12]

I don't think so. The Confederates were secessionists, and left the Union with both GOP and DNC members scratching their heads. If you mean AFTER the war, around the turn of the century, then the KKK were Dixiecrats, fur sur.

[biger-e]

Jefferson Davis (the president of the confederacy)was a Democrat

[ubrew12]

skyk-2009's reference is to the modern GOP, which took in all those disenchanted KKK members and Dixiecrats after LBJ move the Democrats to embrace civil rights. The modern GOP is stock full of former racist Dixiecrats and is well-termed the modern Confederate Party.

[biger-e]

Did I mention that Abe Lincoln was a Republican. I know all you libs hate the fact that it was your party that faught to keep slavery and it was the republicans that freed the slaves.

[pubsnomore]

Suck it up RepigTards! You're going to pay for what Bushit did for the past 8 years.

[eclecticman1]

Ohio is experiencing record cool temperatures, 55 degrees in July.

This is called "weather". Once you know the differnce between climate and weather, you may understand what is happening.

[Joe_NY_15]

See the trouble is the whole country is experiencing record cool temperatures....such as here in the Northeast...not only Ohio....so far this summer, not one day over 90.....I still ask, what could be done, if the climate was cooling...what

[ubrew12]

Well, it looks like we're going to have to wait for more proof that the planet is warming before many Americans will take this stuff seriously. The 11 year solar cycle is starting on the upswing again, maybe that'll do it.

BTW, there's ALOT of evidence now that melting permafrost is releasing huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere. Don't suppose that, by the time you're willing to admit humankind can tip the climate in one direction or the other, that we'll have the ability to stop what we started.

[pubsnomore]

Well, since Rush DumpSack doesn't know the difference, none of his Grand Ole Party of Hate will either.

[mainermike]

This is AS I SEE IT, by Mainer Mike Brown,

Global security is key.

That's AS I SEE IT. I'm Mainer Mike Brown.

[Joe_NY_15]

Let's get to the bottom of this whole debate.

Liberal believe they can stop Climate Change by driving a Prius....that's it, they have such a lofty demi-god view of themselves that they actually believe they can stop the earth from changing it's climate....WOW

Forget global warming debate, they actually think they are so all mighty as to stop the climate from changing through captax and tradetax and with hybrids.....laughable...their naivete' is comical

[ubrew12]

Maybe, but don't try that schtick at a comedy club.

[pubsnomore]

What's laughable is the arrogant way the 21% Repiglickkker GOP of H acts like they still have a say in running the US of A.

NOW THAT'S FUNNY!!! ROFL!!!!

[whitemale08]

Ohio is experiencing record cool temperatures, 55 degrees in July.

Global Warming is the WMDs of the Democrat party.

Anyone who is a 'partisan' is a fool, both parties paid for by Wall Street/City of London.

British idiots in the past like JOhn Law, were trying to 'monetize' the air and the seas.

One such swindle was the 'South Sea Company' and another was the 'Louisania Land' project, which the French were forced to sell the Western part of the United States to Thomas Jefferson.

Folks, don't believe this krap, it's a hoax, it's just another Greenspan bubble of worthless derivatives and credit-default swaps.

It's also a classic IMF/World Parasites MASSIVE AUSTERITY package that they do to other 3rd world countries after they blow out their economies.

DON'T DO IT AMERICA....YOU'LL BE SORRY!!!!

[ubrew12]

Hey everybody, its cold in Ohio!!!
whitemale08: dig yourself out of the last flood yet?

[iam4honesty]

I'm proud of our President. After eight years of a dummmazzz, stuttering cowboy flying around the world giving massages and saying the stupidest things imaginable, it's refreshing to be represented by an adult. God Bush was an embarrassment!

[ubrew12]

Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.
And by that measure, Bush was an airhead. Revealed by the way everything he touched withered and died.

[cbs4111]

"Climate change"? Whatever happened to "Global Warming"? I'll tell you; after heating up rapidly in the 1990s to a peak in 1998, global temperatures have dropped since then, actually dropping fairly rapidly after 2005. Why? It's because of the Solar cycles, not carbon dioxide. The Sun goes through cycles every 11 years and another cycle every 75 to 100 years. Climate modelers dismissed the Sun's influence on climate incorrectly - they forgot about the effects the Sun has on cloud formation. When the Sun is in the Solar Minimum part of the 11 year cycle, like right now, clouds are more common across the Earth, blocking the sun. So why wasn't this obvious to everyone? It's because our satellites haven't taken data long enough to understand the 75 year cycle. But we now know that Solar cycles fully explain why the Earth heated up as much from 1910 to 1940 as it did from 1970 to 2000, and it explains why the earth cooled from 1940 to 1970, just as it is cooling now. Carbon dioxide doesn't explain this heating and cooling because there was less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 1910 than in 2000, actually 0.00032 in 1910 and 0.00038 in 2000. If carbon dioxide was causing global warming the earth wouldn't have cooled from 1940 to 1970 (remember the global cooling scare?) and it wouldn't be cooling now. Once the solar cycles were put into the climate models, it became obvious that Carbon dioxide has a much, much lower impact on the climate than previously thought, it turns out that the Sun was responsible for most of the warming seen from 1970 to 1998. It's known now that a doubling of carbon dioxide will add only about 1 degree C - that's very small, and a doubling of carbon dioxide will take almost 100 years. In that length of time, we'll have run out of oil completely and we will have used up much of our coal so, no matter what, even if we try, humans can't affect the climate all that much. Everyone can go back to concentrating on much more important things - things like nuclear nonproliferation, global hunger, and preserving wildlife habitat as there IS NO IMPENDING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE.

[GiveMeFreedom]

CBS - you are barking up the wrong tree. The Gore freaks care not about reality. They all live in their little fantasy land and spend more time watching celebrity funerals and celebrity programs than trying to understand the world we live in. For that they have fat Albert to tell them what to think.

[ubrew12]

Sounds good. Everyone just go back to work, nothing to see here. One question: and your peer-reviewed article is coming out WHEN? (I assume you're communicating this to those errant thousands of climatologists who neglected to factor the SUN into their climate models, those silly guys, and this will be published soon if not already).

[ubrew12]

The global cooling scare between 1940-1970 is widely held to be global dimming by aerosol pollutants, which were cleaned up by the Clean Air Act. But, if this is so, doesn't that make your 75 year solar cycle a lot of nonsense?

[ubrew12]

observations of clouds and galactic cosmic rays show that, at most, From the Royal Society: "the possible link between cosmic rays and clouds only produces a small effect. Even if cosmic rays were shown to have a more substantial impact, the level of solar activity has changed so little over the last few decades the process could not explain the recent rises in temperature that we have seen."

[BeckieBest]

It's going to be infinitely more expensive to do nothing about climate change than to take action now.

But getting humans to plan ahead for impending disaster is like herding cats.

And getting conservatives to think forward into the future is just about impossible.

They're like a car stuck in reverse.

[cydygitt1]

Yes, CONServitards enjoy living in the past, and have absolutely NO VISION for the future, and will fight every change to the status quo.

[ubrew12]

Yeah, we need another planet on which to conduct an experiment before we'll do anything. Proof, or nothing is our neocon motto.

[pubsnomore]

"They're like a car stuck in reverse."
by BeckieBest July 8, 2009 5:30 AM PDT

Isn't that the entire party motto?

[sam-kiley]

bonjour,
a l'ordre du jour du G8, le changememnt climatique, la faim dans le monde, et l'economie mondiale rien que ça eh bien je leur souhaite du courage, pour la changememnt climatique et la pollution depuis le tzmps qu'on en en parle, le résultat est là la planéte va vers l'asphyxie, j'ai vu un reportage 60mn... sur le traitement du charbon aux USA, et avec tout le c02 qu'il dégage, je constate que les USA qui participent et pour beaucoup dans la pollutiOn de la planéte, devraient faire un effort pour y rémédier, penser a d'autres énergies moins polluantes, a d'autres formes de production d'energie.... le charbon a lui seul est plus nocif et plus polluant que le gaz naturel...c'est le cas pour d'autres pays aussi...qui polluent...et polluent...sans se soucier de l'avenir de la planéte, que va-t-on léguer a nos enfants.....
pour la faim dans le monde aussi il y aura résolutions et promesses rien de plus...merci

[spudder8]

Climate change, if it is for real will not change untill all countries stop poluting, after reading all of the papers designated to the earth warming and why it is happening, this carbon tax is just another way for certain folks to stuff their pockets.

[skyk-2009]

You are sounding like a member of the Confederate Party here. That is one of THEIR talking points against the efforts to combat Global Warming. What you should be asking yourself is what happens if we do NOTHING. What happens if we do NOT find new sources of Energy and develop better ways of running our economy? NO ONE has ever solved any problem doing NOTHING and following a Party and Leaders who have a LONG history of doing NOTHING is not a solution, it's a perscription for YET another MESS we'll have to clean up.

[pubsnomore]

Carbon taxes and credits ARE effectively doing nothing. All of my liberal and moderate friends agree on this one point. If you want to help fight against global warming, you need to do something meaningful...not just buy a slip of paper that says your money will be used toward some nebulus project that you have no idea whether it will actually produce anything meaningful.

For instance, I just bought and installed a small solar array on my house. It's not going to power a whole lot, but I KNOW that I helping every time that I use that power.

[ubrew12]

We need a carbon tax, used to offset other taxes. This is the only way to fight AGW. cap n trade is unfortunately too complicated a scheme, and is subject to the same kind of bubble inflation that wall street just exploited on mortgage derivatives and oil.

[pubsnomore]

Once again...more accusations...no proof. More of the McSame!