UPDATE - US "no" to Kyoto clouds OECD ecology meet
Date: 18-May-01
Country: FRANCE
Author: Mark John
Environment ministers from the 30 member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development adopted a resolution on solving environmental problems, but only after it had to be watered down to reflect U.S. opposition to Kyoto.
With the Bush administration due yesterday to unveil a new national energy plan that environmentalists fear could actually lead to more of the greenhouse gases blamed for warming of the planet, ministers denied the exercise had been a waste of time.
"We made a little bit of progress here," said French Environment Minister Domique Voynet of efforts to reach an understanding with the United States on global warming, seen by some scientists as a cause of natural disasters and flooding.
The OECD text, which is not binding, calls for specific national actions over the next decade to combat climate change. It highlighted top priority problems, including deforestation, water pollution and the extinction of species.
An original draft of the resolution affirmed the full support of the OECD club of rich nations for the Kyoto accord. But this was amended after a ministerial session in which the United States repeated its opposition to the Kyoto pact, which it sees as unfair and damaging to its economy.
KYOTO LACKS U.S. BACKING
The draft finally adopted said only that "a large majority of OECD countries" wanted the treaty, which commits developed countries to a five percent cut of greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2008-2012, to come into force.
Without the backing of the United States, the world's biggest polluter, some government officials believe the Kyoto accord of 1997 is effectively dead in the water, despite efforts by others to push ahead with it.
Ecologists are deeply sceptical that the U.S. energy plan to be unveiled yesterday will have any environmental merit, noting that both President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are ex-oilmen.
Above all, there are concerns the new policy will stress the need for greater reliance on oil and coal, which produce the carbon dioxide seen as the main culprit behind global warming.
U.S. officials at the conference were at pains to insist the Bush administration took the problem of global warming seriously, even if it disagreed with many on the means to face it.
"The President has an extraordinary interest in this subject," Glen Hubbard, Bush's new economic adviser, said.
"But we believe the Kyoto targets are too stringent in the short term and don't nurture a long-term architecture."
Hubbard said the United States would follow up its national energy plan with more specific ideas on the climate before a July international meeting on the issue in Bonn, Germany, which is seen as crucial to the future of the Kyoto accord.