US puts economy first in rebuff to pollution pact

By STEVE CONNOR in London

The United States has ruled out any possibility of taking part in the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gases for at least another 10 years, its senior climate negotiator said yesterday.

The Kyoto agreement is due to be renegotiated in 2005, but the US will take no part in those talks and is unlikely to have anything to do with the treaty before 2012, said Dr Harlan Watson, one of President George W. Bush's most trusted advisers.

Watson, who is in London to attend a Government conference on the environment, said the US intended to go its own way, and would curb its greenhouse gas emissions in a way that did not jeopardise America's jobs or its economy.

"Kyoto would have hammered our economy, put millions of Americans out of work and undermined our ability to make long-term investments in cleaner energy."

In a conciliatory gesture, Watson said that the US Government agreed with the US National Academy of Sciences on global warming.

"There is no doubt that humans have obviously influenced the climate."

Rather than sign up to Kyoto, the US would try to reduce the "intensity" of its greenhouse gases.

"There is no way that anything like Kyoto could be ratified by the US Senate. That is the reality of the situation and it's the reality for the foreseeable future," said Watson.





The US Senate would not agree to any treaty that damaged the American economy and was not ratified by all countries, he said.

The President envisaged a review of US anti-pollution policies in 2012.

"Obviously the President will no longer be President in 2012. If he's elected for a second term, his term will end at the end of 2008. So that doesn't preclude of course a subsequent administration from instigating a review prior to that," Watson said.

"But this is the President's intention anyway. There will be a 10-year review and we'll see where we are then," he said.

Any subsequent negotiations on the Kyoto treaty, which Bush pulled out of last year, will take place without the involvement of the US, the biggest single producer of greenhouse gases.



The US would continue to rely on coal-burning power stations, which produced 55 per cent of its electricity, and nuclear power stations, which generated 20 per cent, said Watson.

At the same time, the US Government would continue to pay for research into renewable energy and ways of "capturing" and "sequestering" carbon emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuel.

Watson said that he and his Administration did not feel isolated internationally following the decision to pull out of the Kyoto agreement.

"I don't particularly feel isolated, because we're all in the same boat.

"We're trying to accomplish the same things.

"All the countries in the world are committed to the framework convention, we've chosen to take a different approach.



"Even among those countries that subscribe to Kyoto we see differences.

"We don't really believe there's going to be Kyoto versus a non-Kyoto world. I think we are seeing a variety of approaches."

The reality was that with the exception of Britain and Germany, most of the other countries around the world were not going to meet their domestic commitments.

- INDEPENDENT

nzherald.co.nz/climate

Related links

nzherald.co.nz/environment