European leaders express shock at US rejection of global warming agreement Protocol
The EU Environment Commissioner will go to Washington next week in a last-ditch effort to save an international agreement on global warming.
Ms Margot Wallstrom said it was too early to talk of punishing the US after President Bush's decision not to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that commits industrialised nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.
Ms Wallstrom said she would seek clarification of the US position when she visits Washington early next week with the Swedish and Danish Environment Ministers.
"We still have some hopes that they will be able to clarify exactly what they mean in that they are interested in constructive international talks with their partners. We hope we might get an answer to that question when we go to Washington," she said.
EU governments have expressed shock at the US move, which reverses a position Mr Bush took during last year's presidential election campaign.
The Danish Environment Minister, Mr Svend Auken, said that the decision was clearly motivated by fears of a downturn in the US economy.
"It is not acceptable that national economic worries mean that the world cannot act against a global threat," he said.
Ms Wallstrom left the door open to further negotiations with Washington but insisted that the EU remained committed to the deal agreed at Kyoto.
"The EU is committed to the protocol, and aims at getting it enforced by 2002. We are willing to discuss details and problems, but not to scrap the whole protocol. It is the platform we stand on," she said.
European governments have postponed ratifying the Kyoto Protocol pending agreement on how the emission reductions should be implemented.
Climate change talks in The Hague collapsed last November when the EU and the US failed to agree on whether to allow developed countries to fund emission cuts in the Third World and count them against their own emission targets.
The EU believes that such mechanisms would mean that countries could meet their Kyoto targets without making any actual cuts in emissions at home.
Green members of the European Parliament called yesterday for a boycott of US oil companies until Mr Bush changes his mind on climate change.
Ms Wallstrom warned that the dispute could have wider implications for the transatlantic relationship.
"This isn't some marginal environmental issue that can be ignored or played down. It has to do with trade and economics," she said.
If Mr Bush refuses to change his mind, the EU will come under pressure to ratify the protocol with other countries but without the US. But Ms Wallstrom said she would be reluctant to take such a step without first exhausting other possibilities.
"It's still possible without the US, but of course it's much more difficult. "Why should we put European businesses under such high pressure and let American companies off the hook?" she said.
Italy's Environment Minister, Mr Willer Bordon, warned that the US would be penalised if it does not accept the treaty.