Apparently, President Obama has announced a summit of world leaders to discuss climate change, to occur in April as partial preparation for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in December. The summit will include Canada, the US, China, India, and twelve others.
Quite possibly, it will offer a useful glimpse into the national positions being adopted for Copenhagen, and the possibility of a strong agreement emerging there. Arguably, the most important issue is the degree of bilateral cooperation likely to emerge between the US and China. If they can agree to something that is acceptable for the European Union and Japan, everybody else might fall into line.
This certainly sounds like a positive development with leadership being demonstrated by the United States.
Actually, the Bush administration also had some of these ‘major economies’ gatherings, though a lot of environmentalists thought the strategy was more to confound than to advance effective international agreements.
The change is less the occurrence of the meeting and much more the hope that it might be productive.