BERLIN and WASHINGTON — Political tensions between the US and Germany over climate change have worsened sharply, with Washington threatening to no longer ‘tread lightly’ in negotiations on global warming ahead of the Group of Eight rich nations’ summit next month. The US has sent Germany a harshly worded statement in which it accuses Berlin of ignoring of Washington’s ‘serious, fundamental concerns’ with Germany’s draft climate change communiqué for the Baltic coast summit. The statement, written in red ink and obtained by the Financial Times, says: ‘We have tried to ‘tread lightly’ but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position.’ Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, would like the summit to agree limits on carbon emissions but the US says climate change should be tackled with technology-based solutions rather than mandatory emissions targets and accuses Berlin of ignoring its stance. Washington says the latest version of the communiqué ‘is called final but we never agreed to any of the climate language presented in the document’. It adds: ‘The majority of our comments on the previous draft have not been addressed and some new, problematic text has been […]