The rest of the world, including the Government, has reacted with justifiable anger and outrage to the announcement that President George W. Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which commits signatory States to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Since the United States is responsible for at least 25 per cent of worldwide emissions, with only four per cent of world population, the decision appears to confirm a pattern of arrogant unilateralism in the emerging Bush foreign policy. That is exemplified by the terms of the announcement, which said the protocol "exempts the developing countries around the world and it is not in the US economy's best interests". Mr Bush said yesterday he would not accept a plan "which will harm the American economy and harm American workers".
If that is the way his administration wants to play the international game it would be as well they are fully aware of the consequences. Despite its military hegemony and economic strength the US is highly interdependent with the rest of the world and relies on its goodwill for its own prosperity and security. A refusal to co-operate on a crucial issue like climate change will affect other important negotiations, such as those on world trade, genetically modified food and food additives, as well as more conventional foreign policy matters where the US needs a favourable outcome to protect its interests.
Such consequences were spelled out by the European Union's Environment Commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom. She is likely to get support from EU environment ministers at their informal meeting in Sweden this weekend. They will hear initial responses from other European meetings with Mr Bush and his advisers, at which they will strongly urge him to reconsider this decision. Several EU leaders said they do not believe this is Washington's last word on the matter. But it will not be easy to persuade the US to come back into the Kyoto Protocol regime rather than attempt to negotiate a new agreement, as the Bush administration says it wants to do. Negotiations on implementing Kyoto broke down in The Hague last November after the EU and the US failed to reach agreement on the use of forests in the developing world to absorb greenhouse gases. The hostile reaction to this decision should jolt the new administration into a clearer realisation that in a more multipolar world it will be much more difficult to get its way. It is one thing to say - which is true - that Kyoto is incapable of ratification because of overwhelming opposition in the US Senate, or to propose alternative means of reducing emissions using new technology. It is quite another to make such unilateral announcements. US allies and partners should not abandon the Kyoto Protocol but exert maximum pressure on the US to re-engage with it.
It is unacceptable that the US should so blithely disregard its obligations on such a central issue of world concern. This is especially so since there is more than a hint that the administration is inclined to reject the firm international scientific consensus that global warming is indeed caused by human activity - principally the burning of fossil fuels in the most developed States, and primarily in the US itself.