US defends environmental protection record and digs in

TOKYO - United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has defended America's record on environmental protection and said Washington was not denying its responsibilities by refusing to back the Kyoto pact on global warming.

In talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Powell thanked Tokyo for its efforts to bridge the gap between the US and the European Union on the 1997 Kyoto accord.

But, he said, Washington could not support the pact as it stood.

"We know that global warming is a challenge. The United States is not running away from that challenge," Powell said after meeting Koizumi.

"The President is committed to working with all the nations of the world who are involved in this process, to find ways that we can join a consensus at some point in the future, but the Kyoto Protocol still is not acceptable ... "

Four days of high-level negotiations in Bonn, Germany, ended with a broad package on how to implement the Kyoto accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions after Tokyo won latitude on how to reach its targets.

Tokyo's consent has been crucial to bringing the accord into force since US President George W. Bush rejected the 1997 pact in March, saying it would hurt the economy of the world's biggest polluter.

Loath to alienate the US or put Japanese companies at a competitive disadvantage, Koizumi has sought to lure Washington back to the accord even while promising that Japan is committed to seeing it take effect in 2002.

"We are making efforts so that America, the European Union and Japan can achieve cooperation," he said yesterday.

Scientists warn that the greenhouse effect - caused by pollutant gases trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere - could cause average temperatures to rise by up to 6deg in the next 100 years.

- REUTERS

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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

United Nations Environment Program

World Meteorological Organisation

Framework Convention on Climate Change

Executive summary: Climate change impacts on NZ

IPCC Summary: Climate Change 2001