-Caveat Lector-
Monday July 16 7:36 AM ET
Climate Talks Start But Hopes of Deal Fade
By Matt Daily
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Talks opened in Germany on Monday to try to
salvage the international Kyoto agreement, a pact many scientists believe
may be the last chance to save the environment from the destructive impact
of global warming.
With the United States and Europe at daggers drawn over the 1997
U.N.-sponsored Kyoto Protocol, which would force industrial powers to cut
greenhouse gas emissions, chances seem slim of an accord during two weeks
of meetings in Bonn.
Japan has emerged as a pivotal player between the other two polluting,
industrial regions. But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said it will
take more talks in Morocco in October to reach an overall deal.
Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk opened the Bonn talks, saying he had
brought forward some elements of the negotiating process to try to speed up
progress following the failure of a summit he hosted at The Hague last
November.
``It's crucial that we bring our four years of work to completion,'' he
told reporters.
President Bush has renounced the backing for the pact given by his
predecessor, Bill Clinton. Washington says Kyoto was based on dubious
science and would hurt the economy.
That has angered Europeans, some of whom accuse Bush, a former Texas
oilman, of putting the business interests of the world's biggest polluter
ahead of saving the planet.
JAPAN'S ``BLACK CLOUD''
Koizumi's cautious pessimism brought angry responses from environmental
campaigners who say delay can only increase the threat that global warming
will melt polar ice-caps and flood coastlines and islands.
``There is huge black cloud over the conference --
it's caused by Japan not willing to go ahead without the U.S.,'' Bill Hare,
Greenpeace's climate change campaign head, told Reuters.
``All the issues are going to be held hostage by this.''
Some European officials and other observers said they were still hopeful
that Japan could be persuaded to back European Union efforts to have the
pact ratified by a majority of key states to try to increase pressure on
Washington to back it.
``The negotiations will be very difficult and it could be that the whole
enterprise collapses,'' German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin told
German television.
``Japan helped with the birth of Kyoto but it also could contribute to
burying Bonn...Now we have to make that leap...The main question is whether
the United States will come around to being more efficient in their use of
energy,'' he said.
Dismissing chances of changing Bush's mind any time soon, Trittin, a member
of the environmentalist Greens party, said it was more important to get
Japan and Russia to agree the pact: ''That's the aim of negotiations in
Bonn. If we succeed, or if Japan buries the Kyoto protocol, remains to be
seen,'' he said.
The talks in the former West German capital on the Rhine will focus on
detailed issues like deadlines for cutting gas emissions, mechanisms for
trading emissions allowances among countries and formulae for offsetting
gas emissions against forests, which can turn carbon dioxide pollution back
to oxygen.
Government ministers are not due to join civil servants at the meetings
until Thursday. And much of the high-level political arm twisting -- as
well as potentially violent protests -- is likely to be reserved for this
weekend's Group of Eight (G8) summit of leading industrial powers at Genoa,
Italy.
European leaders, including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French
President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are likely
to press Bush and Koizumi on the issue.
In order to be binding on those taking part, the pact must be ratified by
at least 55 countries which also account for 55 percent of the
industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions.
That means that without the United States, which alone accounts for 36.1
percent of those emissions, most of the other big industrial nations must
sign up together --
the EU's 15 states account for 24.2 percent and Japan 8.5 percent.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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