"Only the U.S. stood out on Kyoto. Maybe the terrible events of September 11 will give it pause to remember its international obligations," Meacher, who was in South Africa on a ministerial visit, told Reuters in an interview.

Meacher picked up on a theme raised by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said last week that a new world order based on cooperation in a wide range of areas was now possible.

"Out of the shadow of this evil (the U.S. attacks) should emerge lasting good. This is a moment to seize. Let us re-order the world around us," Blair told his Labour Party.

"We could defeat climate change if we chose to. Kyoto is right. We will implement it and call upon all other nations to do so," Blair said.

Britain has been Washington's staunchest ally in its military strikes on Afghanistan, which it accuses of harbouring Muslim militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last month's devastating attacks with hijacked planes in New York and Washington.

The United States, the world's biggest producer of the greenhouse gases seen responsible for global warming, refused to sign an international pact struck in Bonn in July designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal aims to reduce greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The U.S. has also rejected a draft protocol on a ban on biological warfare.

"We all need each other. The U.S. needs us and we need them. And we need the U.S. on the climate change (Kyoto) and germ warfare treaties," Meacher said.

THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Meacher said climate change was the gravest threat facing humanity in the long term.

He noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts average surface temperatures to rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius in the period from 1990 to 2100.

"People may think a temperature change of five degrees is nothing but it is huge. The last ice age saw a global temperature drop of five degrees," he said.