Bush casts pall over Kyoto pact
Bush has now effectively angered the entire European Union at him and possibly isolated himself and his nation with his stance
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By Edward Alden and Nancy Dunne in Washington and Robert Shrimsley in London
Published: March 28 2001 23:15GMT | Last Updated: March 29 2001 01:07GMT
The White House on Wednesday put the Kyoto treaty on
global warming in grave peril, saying President George
W. Bush was "unequivocal" in opposing it and had
ordered a cabinet-level review to find alternative
approaches to the problem.
The statement infuriated the European Union and will
exacerbate a growing list of foreign policy disputes with
the US.
"Without the participation of the world's biggest polluter, the Kyoto protocol is in
serious trouble," said a spokeswoman for Margot Wallström, EU environment
commissioner. She added: "We are ready to discuss details and problems the
US has with Kyoto but not to scrap it, because that would mean the end of climate
talks."
Michael Meacher, the British environment minister, said: "If America now tries to
walk away, that is not just an environmental decision, it is an issue of transatlantic
foreign policy."
Ari Fleischer, Mr Bush's spokesman, said: "The president has been unequivocal.
He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It exempts the developing nations around
the world ... and it is not in the United States's economic best interests."
Implementation would entail "huge costs . . . disproportionate to the benefits."
Under the pact the US would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a third by
2012.
Mr Fleischer deflected questions on whether the US would withdraw from the
1997 pact, saying there was no treaty from which to withdraw because it had never
been ratified. Only one of the 55 signatories has actually ratified the pact
committing countries to sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, which is
"a signal worldwide that others agree with the president's position on the treaty,"
he said.
While the administration has said it will not agree to forced reductions in
emissions of greenhouse gases, it has been careful not to declare that global
warming poses no environmental threat.
A White House official said on Wednesday that by launching a cabinet-level policy
review, the president had underscored the importance of the issue.
The US statement will complicate a difficult first meeting on Thursday in
Washington between Mr Bush and Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who
wrote to the president this month expressing his concern about the new US
administration's views.
Mr Schröder had been hoping to engage Washington in talks on how to restart the
stalled Kyoto process in advance of a July 16 meeting on climate change in Bonn.
The Group of Eight summit, which will be Mr Bush's first trip to Europe, will take
place in the middle of that meeting. But the White House made it clear on
Thursday that any future negotiations on global warming will have to take place
under a framework other than that agreed in the 1997 Kyoto treaty.
Kjell Larsson, environment minister of Sweden, which is highlighting sustainable
development as a theme of its presidency of the EU, said: "This is very upsetting
and it sabotages many years of hard work."
Mr Larsson is to take up the issue at an informal meeting of EU environment
ministers at Kiruna, northern Sweden, tomorrow and will also press for talks with
Washington.
The US statement drew strong criticism from environmental groups that support
the Kyoto process. "They don't have their act together," said Philip Clapp,
president of the National Environmental Trust, a moderate group which is trying to
work with the administration. He said that Mr Bush could face a foreign policy
disaster when he travels to Europe in July because many European governments
cannot allow themselves to be seen domestically as bowing to the US on the
controversial climate change issue. He warned that European environmental
ministers "have a reason to believe they were lied to" because Christine Todd
Whitman, who heads the US Environmental Protection Agency, earlier this month
in Trieste signed a communiqué in which each country promised "to take the
lead" in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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