EU hints at special greenhouse gas deal for US

STOCKHOLM - European Union leaders say parts of the Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming could be renegotiated to suit the United States, which has refused to ratify it.

The protocol, which calls on industrialised nations to reduce their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, was agreed to in 1997 and is scheduled to take effect next year.

But late last month, President George W. Bush said the treaty was not in the best interests of the US.

Goran Persson, the Prime Minister of Sweden (which holds the rotating EU presidency), and EU Commission president Romano Prodi say it would be "a tragic mistake to tear the agreement to pieces and start over again."

"We lose time and all of us become losers," they wrote in a joint column in the Swedish regional daily Goteborgs-Posten.

"If certain parts of the agreement prevent the United States from ratifying it, we should negotiate about those parts rather than bury the entire agreement."

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported at the weekend that US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was considering a substitute for the Kyoto treaty which would be revealed in July and would involve developing and industrialised nations.

The two European leaders reiterated that the 15 EU countries would ratify the Kyoto Protocol with or without the US.

Prodi said last week in Britain's Independent newspaper: "We in the EU do not see a solution to the climate problem outside the Kyoto Protocol."

He and Persson wrote in the Swedish newspaper that it was "regrettable and serious" that Washington no longer considered the accord worthy of discussion.

"The climate is already changing. The poorest countries have been hit the hardest by the effects of climate change and they are the most vulnerable to further changes," they wrote.

"More rain will fall in areas already suffering from floods. Less rain will fall in areas already suffering from droughts. Supplies of food and water will be put at risk. A rise in the level of the oceans by half a metre would hit hundreds of millions of people in lowland coastal regions, primarily in poor countries."

It was the responsibility of industrialised countries, which produce most of the global greenhouse gas pollution, to take the lead to reduce emissions, Persson and Prodi wrote.

The richest fifth of the world's population was behind 60 per cent of all greenhouse gases, they said, adding that the United States produced a quarter of the planet's carbon dioxide emissions.

"The longer we wait, the more difficult and the more expensive it will become."

- REUTERS

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