US may be isolated at Kyoto talks - minister
Date: 29-Oct-01
Country: MOROCCO
Author: Gilles Trequesser
The United States in March pulled out of the Kyoto pact - a 1997 international accord on cutting greenhouse emissions - after President George W. Bush called it "fatally flawed" and contrary to U.S. economic interests.
"We'd wish they (the Americans) were not outside (the pact), especially after September 11," Environment Minister Mohamed El Yazghi told Reuters in an interview.
"Their interest is clearly not to be isolated but they run the risk of appearing to defend only their own interests," he said.
Yazghi will chair a meeting in the southern Moroccan city of Marrakesh from October 29 to November 9 where more than 180 countries will put the finishing touches to the U.N. Kyoto agreement.
Although world attention is on the fight against terrorism and U.S.-led military strikes on Afghanistan after last month's suicide airliner attacks on the New York and Washington, experts said environmental issues are here to stay.
The conference known as COP7 - the seventh conference of parties to a U.N. non-binding treaty signed in 1992 at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro - is expected to tie loose ends on the Kyoto Protocol following a meeting in Bonn in July.
The pact aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere and are blamed for global warming, to an average of five percent below 1990 levels by 2010.
El Yazghi said he did not expect the U.S. delegation to bring any rival proposals to Marrakesh.
"It's a wise decision, a political decision in order not to disrupt the agenda of the conference," he said.
He predicted, however, delegates would "try and convince" the Americans to reverse their stand on the Kyoto Protocol.
Countries accounting for 55 percent of industrial nations' carbon dioxide emissions must ratify the pact. The absence of the United States is particularly felt because it represents about a third of the industrialised world's output.
The minister was optimistic delegates would finalise details of the Bonn deal, including on ensuring compliance.
"I'm very optimistic because a lot of the ground work was done in Bonn," he said, adding the Marrakesh session would "translate into legal text" what was decided in July and allow countries to ratify it by next year.
