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Protests mar climate talks


Carbon dioxide emissions pose a great threat to the environment

TRIESTE, Italy -- Several thousand demonstrators have held protests at the start of the latest international summit to discuss climate changes.

Environment ministers from G8 countries were meeting in Trieste, Italy, on Saturday against a background of loud but mostly peaceful protest, although some smoke bombs were thrown at security forces.

More than 3,000 police and special bomb and marine units moved into the area over the past two days to prepare for possible clashes.

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The talks have been marked by concerns that uncertainty over the U.S. position may weaken consensus when they end on Sunday.

The new administration of President George W. Bush has said it wants to move ahead in tackling global warming and will attend key talks in Bonn in July which follow the failed U.N. global warming talks in The Hague last November.

Environmentalists have accused Bush of having a poor track record in environmental policy while he was Texas governor.

"It was a very frank and open discussion. It's clear there's a consensus among everyone at the table that global climate change is enormously important issue that has to be confronted in each country's policy discussions," a spokeswoman for the U.S. delegation said.

The Trieste meeting is the first time ministers have met since the session at The Hague, which tried to move the world forward on implementing the 1997 Kyoto agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Italian Environment Minister Willer Bordon said: "I can say with certainty that there will not be a negative message coming out of Trieste.

"There will be no backtracking. That doesn't mean that everything that happened at The Hague (before talks were suspended) will be accepted en masse.

"This means that there will be no rethinking of the principal objective -- the reduction of greenhouse gases. This is the fundamental point and today everyone confirmed their maximum commitment and Whitman made a very positive contribution."

A U.N. scientific panel has said the average global temperature is likely to rise by between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5-10.4 Fahrenheit) over the next 100 years. Sea levels could rise by as much as 88 cm (35 inches).

Such a change in temperature -- which many scientists believe is being caused by pollution trapping heat in the atmosphere -- would mean widespread droughts and floods and massive economic and natural damage, experts say.

While most countries are refusing to ratify the Kyoto deal until rules on how to implement the cuts are in place, environmentalists see the accord as the best chance to save the planet from rising sea levels and massive weather changes.

Reuters contributed to this report.