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November 29, 2005

U.S. Defends Decision Not To Join Kyoto Protocol

Envoys from more than 180 nations Monday are holding talks in the Canadian city of Montreal on the Kyoto Protocol.

The 12-day gathering of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is expected to draw between 8,000 and 10,000 participants from government, business, science and green groups.

The United States instantaneously　defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, saying during the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most countries to protect the earth's atmosphere.

AP reports Monday that Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that President Bush takes global warming seriously and noted that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had actually gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush, even though he declined to join the treaty.

Watson also said the United States spends more than $5 billion a year on efforts to slow the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere by supporting climate change research and technology, and that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012.

However, AP's report notes that Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club Canada accused the world's biggest polluter of trying to derail the Kyoto accord, saying "We have a lot of positive, constructive American engagement here in Montreal - and none of it's from the Bush administration, which represents the single biggest threat to global progress."

Although thel Conference is considered the most important gathering on global warming since Kyoto, Japanese newspaper, the Yomiuri, says that the conference would be " the difficult negotiations with contradiction and limit", since the United States, the world biggest polluter, hasn't changed its position.

Time Magazine ran an interesting article when President Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto accords as one of the first acts of his presidency in 2001.

When it Comes to Kyoto, the U.S. is the "Rogue Nation"

The rest of the world has decided to proceed with the Kyoto pact despite Washington's withdrawal. TIME.com's Tony Karon explains why that may be bad news for U.S. global leadership.

Posted November 29, 2005 07:09 AM

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