WCA September 2007

From the americas

Statue of Liberty Image from BigStockPhoto.com Photographer: Marty

That bit of piety did very little to soothe Greenpeace, the international environmental advocacy organisation. The group’s energy policy specialist, John Coequyt, had this to say about the US opposition to Germany’s proposed declaration: “The Bush administration is clearly ignoring the global scientific consensus as well the groundswell of concern about climate change in the United States. The administration’s attempts to hold up any meaningful agreement at the G-8 summit in June are criminal, but not unexpected.”

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The environment Japan embraces the European campaign for greenhouse gas curbs, but the US stonewalls The United States, with less than 5% of the world’s population, produces between 20% and 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to its own official data. Although emissions in Europe and the United States have been slowing recently, with a slight drop in the US in 2006, accelerated growth is forecast by agencies in both the West and in Asia. It was in this context that the Group of 8 industrialised nations (G-8) prepared to meet in June, in Germany, to develop a united approach to the gathering crisis in climate change. But the prospects for harmonious discussion were shattered beforehand. On 25 th May, American negotiators raised strenuous objections to the German draft of the communiqué for the meeting, on grounds that the proposal ‘crosses multiple red lines in terms of what [we] simply cannot agree to.’ Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who hosted the meeting in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, has pushed hard to get G-8 to take significant action on global warming. Germany has proposed cutting global GHG emissions to 50% below 1990 levels, by 2050. But the US has resisted such initiatives out of concerns about damage to the American economy. Britain, France, Italy, and of course Germany were expected to back the proposal. But their ranks were suddenly swelled on the eve of the conference when Japan announced its solidarity with the Europeans. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed cutting carbon emissions as part of a new framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol. That United Nations-sponsored agreement covers more than 160 countries and over 55% of global GHG emissions, but its mandatory caps on emissions will end in 2012. “The Kyoto Protocol was the first, concrete step for the human race to tackle global warming, but we must admit that it has limitations,” Mr Abe said at a conference in Tokyo on 24 th May. He specifically called on the US and China, the second-biggest producer of carbon emissions, to lead the fight against global warming. The chances of this happening seem remote. The United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and deflects criticism of its refusal by noting that neither China nor India endorses Kyoto. In these matters, the administration of President George W Bush represents the US as aggrieved and forbearant. “We have tried to tread lightly,” the American response to the German draft communiqué asserted. “But there is only so far we can go, given our fundamental opposition to the German position.” Kristen A Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House on environmental issues, said: “All the G-8 countries are committed to pursuing an agreement. We just come at it from different perspectives.”

Aerospace

Foreign airlines with new planes are set to challenge US carriers

Reporting on 20 th June from the Paris Air Show, Julie Johnsson of the Chicago Tribune observed that aerospace, an industry long dominated by US companies, is going global. She cited orders from Qatar, Dubai, and Singapore that have pushed aircraft sales to new heights over the past two years, ‘even as older American and European carriers remained on the sidelines.’ Of the orders placed to that point in the show, Qatar Airways accounted for the largest: 80 Airbus A350 XWBs and three Airbus superjumbo A380s. Qatar and India’s Jet Airways are rapidly building international networks and buying fleets of the most advanced aircraft on offer. According to Ms Johnsson they are targeting the US for expansion – and they have a keen interest in Chicago. (‘Growing Foreign Carriers Grabbing Air Space’) Jet Airways plans to begin flying between India and Chicago next year. Qatar is finalising a code-share agreement with Chicago-based United Airlines, whose largest hub is Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport where it has 650 daily departures. The agreement would enable Qatar Airways passengers from the Middle East or Europe to connect to Chicago and other US cities. “The potential is large,” Saroj Datta, executive director of Mumbai-based Jet Airways, told the Tribune . As for Emirates, the world’s fastest-growing airline, its chairman Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, of the ruling family of Dubai, is bent on making his sheikdom by the sea into the busiest airline hub in the world – ahead of London, New York, and Singapore. Starting with $10 million in 1985, Sheik Ahmed built Emirates from a two-plane operation into the world’s eighth-largest international carrier. Now it has ordered 55 superjumbo A380s, to begin building the biggest fleet of the Airbus double-deckers anywhere. Emirates will take delivery of one new Airbus or Boeing plane a month for the next five years. Boeing will adapt and stay the course To Scott Carson, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the dynamic market evident at the Paris air show is ‘the new reality’ to which his company has to adapt. Boeing (Chicago) and Airbus (Toulouse, France) have enjoyed nearly total dominance in a record-breaking aerospace market. But change is in the wind.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2007