President Bush today rejected calls from Britain and the EU to take a tougher approach on global warming when he renewed his opposition to binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at his own climate change conference in Washington, which European diplomats dismissed as a cynical attempt by the White House to derail UN efforts on a new global warming accord, Mr Bush called on the world’s polluters to cut emissions – but only through voluntary steps.
Before Mr Bush spoke, John Ashton, the special representative on climate change for David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, expressed Britain’s growing dismay with Washington’s refusal to sign onto mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
He told The Times that the UN’s effort to forge a new global agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming – which must be done by 2012 – had entered a critical phase. “We cannot do this without binding caps,” Mr Ashton said. “A voluntary approach to greenhouse gases is about as credible as a voluntary approach to speed limits.”
The US is the world’s biggest polluter and European delegates at today’s meeting said that without “real leadership” from the White House in setting binding caps, significant progress on tackling global warming will be difficult to achieve.
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