Japan Conveys Worries Over Bush's Climate-Change Speech

Japan has told the United States of its concerns about a recent speech made by President George W. Bush in which he reiterated the U.S. rejection of an international pact on global warming, Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Shunji Yanai said Thursday.

Yukio Takasu, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Multilateral Cooperation Department, met Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, in Washington on Tuesday to convey Tokyo's concerns, Yanai said at a news conference.

At the meeting, Japan told the U.S. that Bush's speech failed to cite specific measures Washington should take to fight global warming and had no reference to mandatory controls on emissions of greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Yanai said.

Japan told the U.S. of the importance of its ''constructive'' participation in the pact, Yanai said.

The protocol, negotiated and adopted in Kyoto, Japan, requires industrialized countries to cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxides.

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