BRUSSELS - "The United States, considered an environmental laggard by its critics, is unlikely to sign any new pacts on climate change at a key environmental meeting this month, a senior US official said on Thursday. Signatories to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change will meet between Dec. 6-17 in Buenos Aires, where many environmentalists hope new far-reaching targets will be made.
Russia's recent life-giving ratification of the Protocol, an international pact that aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012, has energised conference participants like the European Union, seen as a world leader in the fight against global warming.
But the United States, which backed out of the Kyoto agreement, feels it is too early to assign post 2012 targets, senior US climate negotiator Harlan Watson told reporters. He said the United States had many bilateral and multilateral partnerships on climate change and spent billions of dollars on related research but did not expect to make new pacts at the meeting in Argentina. "We do not anticipate signing any new agreements," he said."
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