Bush, EU Clash Over Climate Policy
Europeans Plan to Pursue Kyoto Curbs Despite U.S. Stance
"Bush, who was forceful and buoyant Wednesday, seemed tentative and halting today.
At one point, he said that "Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.
" While discussing expansion of NATO and the EU,
he said there ought to be "more countries" in Europe."
By Dana Milbank and Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 15, 2001; Page A01
GOTEBORG, Sweden, June 14 -- President Bush and leaders of the 15 European Union countries clashed sharply today over global warming policy, with the Europeans saying they would move to implement the Kyoto climate treaty without the United States.
"We say we agree to disagree," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said while sharing a platform with a grim-faced Bush, following a summit in this seaside city. "The European Union will stick to the Kyoto Protocol and go for a ratification process. The U.S. has chosen another policy."
Bush reiterated his objections to the treaty, but said: "We do agree that climate change is a serious issue, and we must work together. We agree that climate change requires a global response, and agreed to intensify cooperation on science and technology."
The two sides issued a communique emphasizing common positions on free trade, helping Africa with its AIDS crisis and peacekeeping in the Balkans. Bush reiterated his pledge that U.S. troops in the Balkans would not return home in advance of the European soldiers there. The communique said the United States and EU would seek to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Doha, Qatar, in November.
After the meeting, however, some Europeans expressed complaints about protectionism in Bush's recent moves to defend the U.S. steel industry.
And others were miffed by a call from Bush for expansion of the EU as well as the NATO military alliance. "I strongly believe in NATO expansion, and I believe that the EU ought to expand, as well," Bush said.
The EU has plans to expand, but European leaders are sensitive to any hint that its policy is dictated by the United States.
Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external affairs,
suggested after Bush's remarks that because the United States is not an EU member,
its expansion plans were not the Americans' concern.
"I don't imagine for one moment the United States intends to overlook that rather important consideration,"
Patten said. A U.S. official called the complaint "odd."
Bush, who was forceful and buoyant Wednesday, seemed tentative and halting today. At one point, he said that "Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." While discussing expansion of NATO and the EU, he said there ought to be "more countries" in Europe.
Some Europeans said that despite the disagreements, they were more impressed by Bush in private meetings than accounts had led them to expect. One European diplomat said that Bush seemed willing to listen to various viewpoints, even though he seemed tentative in his public comments.
"He has this way of talking that makes you wonder whether he has difficulty talking, or he doesn't fully grasp the issues," the diplomat said after Bush's news conference.
Bush's appearance here attracted about 10,000 protesters, a larger crowd than normally appears for EU summits, which bring together the heads of the 15 member countries. The meeting was held here this time because Sweden holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency.
There were scuffles and some rock-throwing. Police defused one potential incident by cordoning off a high school where dozens of anarchists had camped overnight. Authorities said they discovered molotov cocktails and stones inside the school, and feared the protesters would attempt to disrupt the summit.
For the most part, the demonstrations were peaceful, though police made more than 200 arrests. Thousands of protesters snaked through Goteborg's ancient streets in a colorful display of anarchist flags alongside portraits of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, cowboy hats and a giant papier-mache head of Bush. At one point, a small group of protesters bared their bottoms toward the conference site.
Bianca Jagger, who campaigns for human rights and environmental causes, was on hand to press European countries to ratify the Kyoto Protocol even without U.S. consent.
"Does President Bush want to make America a country on the margins?" she
said in an interview. "He comes with a very, very dangerous view of the world. He is the anti-Christ."
Inside the summit, protected by a chain-link perimeter fence, the subject of global warming drew
the most interest.
The president's position presents a problem for European environmental ministers as they prepare for a resumption of negotiations in Bonn next month over the Kyoto pact. The treaty, negotiated in the Japanese city of that name in 1997, calls on signatories to reduce emissions of "greenhouse gases" that many scientists believe are causing global temperatures to rise.
Though European governments say they plan to proceed with ratification of the accord, many officials think it will have limited value without U.S. participation because the United States is responsible for about a quarter of the planet's man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
Moreover, Europeans would need the support of Japan, another major polluter, to ensure that the pact would be ratified by countries responsible for at least 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty comes into effect only when that level is reached.
Earlier this week, the Japanese government indicated that it had no intention of ratifying an agreement that did not include the United States. "Involvement of the U.S. is indispensable for this process," said Takehiro Kagawa, economic counselor at the Japanese Embassy in Washington.
In Tokyo, the Japanese government today issued a statement saying that Japan "finds it regrettable that there was no meeting of the minds" in Sweden, but that Japan "continues to aim for the effectuation of the Kyoto Protocol by 2002" with the United States as a partner.
Persson, however, appeared to acknowledge that the United States would proceed in its own direction and voiced hopes the separate efforts could be linked. The two sides "agreed to go on with some type of procedure that can lead us back to a position that we can cooperate and try to support each other."
"Kyoto is not meaningless without the United States, because it is just the first step," Persson said. "We have to go ahead, beyond Kyoto. If we now begin to hesitate about the Kyoto Protocol, we will start completely at the beginning again and again."
Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, said he took it as good news that the United States would participate in the environmental meeting next month in Bonn.
But the spirit of cooperation quickly deteriorated into a barbed exchange when Bush, asked about why European countries haven't yet ratified the Kyoto pact, turned to Prodi and said: "I'd be interested in your answer."
The Bush administration has contended that some countries are being hypocritical, endorsing the treaty in public but delaying ratification so as to put off costly changes in gas-emitting industries.
Prodi responded: "The ratification process will start soon, and it started already in some countries. It's going on, and there is not one message till now of refusal or delay of ratification."
Environmental groups voiced disappointment with the outcome of the meeting and said the Europeans likely will attempt to enact a global warming treaty without the United States, provided they can persuade Japan and Russia to join.
"The president ran into a brick wall of opposition from the Europeans on global warming," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, who was in Goteborg to monitor the talks. "He didn't move the EU at all."
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who previously supported Bush on Kyoto, said at a news conference Wednesday in Brussels that his country had "signed up to the Kyoto Protocol" and would honor it.
The EU summit came midway through Bush's five-day trip to Europe, which took him to Spain on Tuesday and then a NATO meeting in Brussels. He will travel to Poland Friday to outline his administration's vision for Europe. Saturday, Bush will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovenia, where Bush's missile defense proposal is likely to dominate discussion.
Staff writer Eric Pianin in Washington contributed to this report.
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