The European Union and the United States have failed to bridge a gap over greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental issues in yet another setback for transatlantic relations, officials said.
Top EU and US officials met in Washington yesterday in hopes of resolving their differences on environmental issues following last year's decision by US President George W. Bush to abandon the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which caps emissions of so-called greenhouse gases believed to be responsible for global warming.
The talks were an attempt by both parties to find a way to move forward following their contentious summit last June in Gothenburg, Sweden, where the leaders of the European Union and the United States recognised that climate change was a pressing issue that requires a global solution but were unable to offer any specific remedies.
European and US officials said they agreed only on the importance of "working toward the achievement of the ultimate objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
AFP