US Waters Down Committment On Any Climate Action - NYT

[hatrack]

BUENOS AIRES, Dec. 18 - Two weeks of negotiations at a United Nations conference here on climate change ended early Saturday with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions.

The main focus was to discuss the Kyoto protocol on global warming, which goes into force on Feb. 16 and will require industrial nations to make substantial cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. But another goal had been to draw the United States, which withdrew from the accord in 2001, back into discussions about ways to mitigate climate change after 2012, when the Kyoto agreement expires. Governments that are already committed to reducing emissions under the Kyoto plan used diplomatic language to express their disappointment at the American position. Environmental groups, however, were more critical of what they characterized as obstructionism.

"This is a new low for the United States, not just to pull out, but to block other countries from moving ahead on their own path," said Jeff Fiedler, an observer representing the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's almost spiteful to say, 'You can't move ahead without us.' If you're not going to lead, then get out of the way." Because the United States rejects the Kyoto accord, it cannot take part except as an observer in talks on global warming held under that format. It has, however, signed a broader 1992 convention on climate change that is based on purely voluntary measures, and the European Union and others had hoped to organize seminars within that framework. But the United States maintains it is too early to take even that step, and initially insisted that "there shall be no written or oral report" from any seminars. In the end, all that could be achieved was an agreement to hold a single workshop next year to "exchange information" on climate change.

EDIT

The United States also stood virtually alone in challenging the scientific assumptions underlying the Kyoto protocol. "Science tells us that we cannot say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided," Paula Dobriansky, under secretary of state for global affairs and the leader of the American delegation, said in her remarks to the conference."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/international/19climate.html?oref=login

[rfkrfk]

1. Count all the votes, not just shrub's one nay vote

>The United States also stood virtually alone<
This is not the 'United Nations Security Council'.
Do these people know how to read?