 |
Europe Warns Bush of Repercussions Over Global Warming Stance
European officials warned President Bush on Thursday that U.S. relations with the rest of the world could suffer if he sticks by a decision to pull out of an agreement on reducing global warming.
"This isn't some marginal environmental issue that can be ignored or played down," European Union Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem said at a news conference. "It has to do with trade and economics."
Bush administration officials announced Wednesday that they would not implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, under which countries agreed to legally binding targets for curbing heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases, which are mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. The move reversed a position Bush took during last year's presidential campaign.
While stressing it was too soon to discuss "tactics to punish the United States," Wallstroem said she will go to Washington next week with an EU delegation to seek clarification of the Bush administration's position.
Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, chairman of the last U.N. climate conference, left Thursday on an unscheduled trip to Washington to try to salvage the Kyoto agreement.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, in Washington on a previously scheduled visit, also pressed the EU case in a meeting with Bush on Thursday.
Bush defended his stance by saying stricter limits now on greenhouse gas emissions could further weaken the U.S. economy and worsen energy shortages plaguing parts of the country.
European officials, however, expressed annoyance that Washington would risk wrecking an agreement thrashed out over years by more than 100 nations because of its current domestic woes.
British Environment Minister Michael Meacher also warned of repercussions, although he ruled out the threat of sanctions.
Others are already suggesting countermeasures, ranging from an e-mail blitz of the White House to pickets outside Exxon, Texaco or Chevron gas stations. Some have suggested the EU could hold up resolution of trans-Atlantic trade disputes.
Critics contend that a U.S. withdrawal would probably doom the pact, since the United States emits about a quarter of the greenhouse gases warming the planet.
In This Section
|