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U.S. pessimism over global warming accord

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration believes agreement on tackling global warming is unlikely, according to a leaked State Department memo.

The news comes as representatives from 40 nations from Europe, the developing world, and an umbrella group comprising Australia, Japan, Canada and New Zealand, prepare to meet in New York on Saturday to discuss the problem.

Despite recent suggestions that Bush's stance might be softening, following an international outcry over his refusal to ratify the 1997 Kyoto treaty, the April 1 cable to diplomatic and consular posts says recent negotiations do not appear to be leading to any significant agreement.

"Certainly not as early as the July meeting in Bonn," says the cable, which was leaked on Friday to several news organisations referring to the resumption of official negotiations on the protocol in Germany this summer.

"Given the long list of outstanding, difficult issues, and the fact that few, if any, parties were engaging in any reassessment of their positions after the Hague, there seems little likelihood they could all be resolved in two weeks of negotiations in July," the memo continues.

A State Department official had no comment on Friday.

As recently as Wednesday, the Dutch environmental minister had told reporters the United States appeared to have toned down criticisms and was no longer insisting the 1997 treaty was dead.

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"I don't hear it anymore. I think it was a premature statement," said Jan Pronk, chairman of the United Nations' climate change negotiating panel, after meeting with U.S. officials.

Much of this hope was based, he said, on the administration's having told him that it would have its own plan to combat global warming before the German talks.

Pronk is due to attend the New York meeting to discuss some proposals of his own aimed at addressing American concerns.

Bush had insisted that developing nations must be included in the treaty's mandatory cuts on carbon dioxide emissions, saying the targets unfairly favoured developing countries and would hurt the U.S. economy.

The pact reached in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 would require industrialised nations to cut their carbon dioxide emissions -- mainly byproducts of manufacturing and automobile use -- by an average of 5.2 percent on 1990 levels by 2012.

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have continued to grow since the treaty was signed, and are now nearly 15 percent above 1990 levels.

To come into force, the 1997 treaty requires 55 countries to ratify it. The 55 countries must also be responsible for at least 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

While this is theoretically possible without the U.S. it would in practice prove difficult as it is responsible for emitting about a quarter of the world's total output.

Environmentalists warned Friday against delaying measures against global warming just to allow the U.S. on board.

"Continuing to await the United States coming forward with new proposals is a losing game," said William Hare, Greenpeace International's climate policy chief. "They don't intend on bringing anything to the table.

"The key message we get is that it's time for the rest of the world to stop listening to the United States."



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