EU environment ministers, angered at Washington's abrupt pull-out from the Kyoto global warming protocol, will meet in Kiruna, Sweden, this weekend to take stock of the treaty and consider alternatives.
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Mr George W Bush
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The US President Mr George W Bush irritated many countries this week when he suddenly scrapped the 1997 Kyoto treaty as "deeply flawed" and contrary to US economic interests.
The EU reacted with alarm, saying it would send a delegation to Washington next week for urgent talks with the US administration.
"This is extremely worrying," EU Environment Commissioner Ms Margot Wallstrom said. "We don't like what we are hearing" from Washington.
The White House confirmed this week Mr Bush's opposition to Kyoto, saying it was "deeply flawed," and his decision not to submit it for Senate ratification.
Bush spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer confirmed the president had 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' economic best interests," Mr Fleischer added.
Aside from global warming, the EU ministers were to spend the weekend in Sweden's far north debating biodiversity and other environmental themes.
But Washington's surprise announcement, which brought expressions of deep concern at last weekend's EU summit in Stockholm, brought the greenhouse issue to the top of the agenda of this weekend's informal ministerial meeting.
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EU Environment Commissioner Ms Margot Wallstrom
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Ms Wallstrom said she would be going to Washington next week with representatives of the Swedish EU presidency and the upcoming Belgian presidency for meetings with Bush administration officials to clarify the US position on solutions to the global warming problem.
The EU ministers this weekend will also be looking at alternate scenarios if it turns out the US pull-out from Kyoto is steadfast.
Britain also warned that the US action was "extremely serious" and an "issue of transatlantic global foreign policy."
Japan and Australia reacted with dismay to the announcement. China branded it irresponsible. Canada said it was disappointing, but hardly a surprise.
Discussions in Kiruna this weekend were expected to deal with keeping Washington on board talks that resume in Bonn next July among Kyoto signatories.
Those talks broke off in The Hague last November amid divisions within the EU and accusations the US was exploiting loopholes to ease the cost of meeting the treaty's targets.
The Greens group in the European Parliament meanwhile called for a boycott of US oil companies in protest, saying in a statement they were "shocked" by American statements on the Kyoto accord.
Kyoto, hammered out in 1997, targets carbon-rich gases, mainly the by-product of burning oil, gas and coal, that scientists say are warming the Earth's atmosphere and could catastrophically change weather patterns.
It commits 38 industrialised countries to an overall cut of 5.2 percent of these "greenhouse" gases by 2010 compared with their 1990 levels. Developing nations are included in the treaty, but are excluded from emission quotas on economic grounds.
AFP