BERLIN (Reuters) - Global financial turmoil will make it harder for international partners to reach important agreements on climate change in the coming months, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday.
Speaking at a Berlin conference on transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy, Steinmeier said countries' policy priorities were shifting in the wake of the market crisis.
"The collapse of a bank is more visible and tangible, and media pressure to act is bigger than it is in a process which is less visible but which has more sustained and long-term effects, such as climate change," he told the conference.
Steinmeier said it was crucial to make advances by the end of 2009, when a Copenhagen summit will aim to finalize a global warming accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which runs to the end of 2012.
"There's no alternative," Steinmeier said. "But the already difficult conditions have become even more difficult through the current situation."
Steinmeier expressed hope that despite the financial market troubles, a new U.S. administration would make international cooperation on energy and climate a priority.
(Reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich)
