U.S. wants Kyoto dropped from U.N. meet agenda

 



  
Tadayoshi Sakaguchi Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

  The United States, having pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, is 
now objecting to its implementation in 2002 being mentioned as 
one of the goals for a global environmental agenda being drawn 
up at the United Nations.

  The United States has demanded that wording on bringing the 
Kyoto Protocol on global warming into effect in 2002 be excluded 
from the implementation documentation of a global environmental 
agenda being drawn up at the third session of the preparatory 
meeting of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development 
(UNCED), sources said Thursday.

  The Kyoto pact grew out of the Conference of the Parties (COP) 
to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which itself 
came out of UNCED.

  The United States has pulled out of the protocol, which obliges 
developed countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and 
announced in February a voluntary U.S. plan to slow the growth 
of global warming gasses.

  The latest move, a sign that the United States is stiffening in 
its attitude toward the pact, will likely draw the ire of other 
countries, including those in the European Union as well as 
Japan, which want an early implentation of the Kyoto protocol.

  The implementation documents, being drawn up at an 
intergovernmental meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York, are 
based on a chairman's paper announced at the second session of 
the preparatory meeting in January. It states how to implement 
Agenda 21--a U.N. global action program for environmental 
restoration, preservation and social development.

  The chairman's paper stated that the countries will do their 
best to ensure 1997 Kyoto Protocol is put into effect in 2002 to 
curb global warming. It also stated developed countries would 
give financial and technical support to those countries 
vulnerable to climate change, such as island nations, and 
alleviate the global warming's impact by introducing devices 
such as satellite observation systems to monitor rising sea 
levels.

  The U.S. government delegation, however, demanded that these 
statements in the chairman's paper be reworded to say that 
countries would tackle climate change in line with the schedule 
agreed upon at COP7 (the seventh session of COP), which mapped 
out implementation of the Kyoto Protocol at an appropriate time.

  Furthermore, concerning assistance to island countries, although 
the U.S. delegation agreed to establish satellite observation 
systems, it demanded that wording about the impact of global 
warming be deleted. The delegation said that a causal relation 
between unusual climatic phenomena and greenhouse gas emissions 
has not been proved.

  The general opinion among other developed countries, however, is 
that the scientific data is commonly interpreted as linking 
droughts, floods and rising tides to global warming.

  
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Cabinet OK's ratification draft

  The Cabinet endorsed for Diet approval a bill for ratification 
of the Kyoto Protocol as well as a revision bill on measures to 
fight global warming. The bill was submitted to the Diet later 
that day.

  In preparation for ratification, the government has already 
adopted a framework that would achieve the protocol's target on 
greenhouse gas emissions. After the Diet ratifies the protocol, 
work will begin on cutting gas emissions.

  
Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun