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G8 Pledges to Finalize Kyoto Climate Accords in July Summit
Closing a three-day G8 environment summit in Trieste, environment ministers from the world's most industrialized nations issued a joint statement Sunday, saying they would try to hammer out the rules for implementing 1997 commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in time for a Bonn summit in July.
"We commit ourselves...to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol," the statement said.
The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997 in Japan, was a promise by all the world's nations to cut the output of greenhouse gases -- held responsible for global warming -- by an average of 5 percent of 1990 levels by 2010.
All countries committed themselves to slightly different reductions and planned to ratify the accord as soon as the rules for implementing the cuts were agreed.
But a summit in the Hague last November failed to forge agreement on these rules, with the U.S. and Europe divided over how much of the reductions should be the result of structural measures at home.
The failure of that summit led to fears that the U.S. was intent on backing away from the entire Kyoto accords, which included an American commitment to trim emissions by 7 percent. Those fears were compounded by the arrival of a new president at the White House.
Sunday's statement, signed by the U.S. and all other G8 nations, appeared to dispel the last doubts on this issue.
"The successful conclusion of the talks is necessary to allow early entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol," the statement said, referring to the sixth round of talks among Kyoto signatories which was almost ran aground at the Hague.
The talks suspended in the Hague are scheduled to reconvene in Bonn in July, when a definitive agreement on strategies would pave the way for the rapid approval of the Kyoto objectives by national parliaments.
"For most countries this means (ratification) no later than 2002," Sunday's agreement said.
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