U.S. snubs Canada call for 2-year talks on climate

By Alister Doyle and Mary Milliken

MONTREAL (Reuters) – The United States snubbed a call by
host Canada on Tuesday for 189-nation climate talks in Montreal
to launch a two-year search for new ways to fight global
warming.

“The United States is opposed to any such discussions,” the
U.S. delegation at the November 28-December 9 talks said in a
statement, reiterating remarks by chief negotiator Harlan
Watson earlier in the week.

Environmentalists denounced the new Canadian proposal as
too vague to slow mounting signs of climate change. The WWF
group said 2005 was set to be the warmest year on record,
marked by hurricanes and a shrinking of Arctic ice to a record
summer low.

Under Canada’s proposal, the U.N. meeting of almost 10,000
delegates should agree “to engage in discussions to explore and
analyze long-term cooperative action to address climate
change.”

The proposed discussions, lasting until December 2007,
would involve all 189 nations in the U.N.’s 1992 climate
convention, including the United States and big developing
nations such as China and India, it said.

The United States, a source of a quarter of all greenhouse
gases, has repeatedly said it is not interested in U.N.-led
talks on the long-term, seeing them as a prelude to caps on
emissions like under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol. Washington
opposes Kyoto.

Most scientists say that a build-up of heat-trapping gases
from fossil fuels burned in power plants, factories and cars is
already warming the planet and could herald catastrophic
changes such as a rise in sea levels spurred by melting
icecaps.

FLOOD OF SCIENCE

Bill Hare, climate director of environmental group
Greenpeace said the Canadian proposal was “anodyne, almost
meaningless” and accused Ottawa of lowering ambitions too far
in a vain drive to enlist Washington.

“The scientific community is flooding us with results
showing global changes,” he said. “The scientific urgency is
not being matched by these talks.” Ministers from more than 90
nations will join the Montreal meeting from Wednesday.

And insurer Munich Re said that 2005 would be the costliest
on record in terms of weather-related disasters such as
Hurricane Katrina. Economic losses will be over $200 billion
and insured losses would exceed $70 billion, it said.

Environmentalists urged about 40 industrial nations who are
part of the Kyoto Protocol, binding them to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, to
forget Washington and instead focus on plans for new cuts
beyond 2012.

President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001,
saying it would cost jobs and wrongly excluded developing
nations from the first set of targets. Washington is not a
party to discussions on Kyoto’s future in Montreal.

Some U.S. senators and mayors predicted that Washington
would eventually sign up for curbs on emissions.

“It is inevitable that after the cities and states show it
is safe, the politicians in Washington D.C. will join and again
the United States will take its moral responsibility,” said
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who favors emissions cuts.

The Canadian proposal for discussions would seek to promote
development for the poorest nations, help countries adapt to
climate change, foster new technologies such as wind or solar
power and help realize “the full potential of markets.”

And Arctic indigenous peoples, saying an accelerating thaw
could spell disaster for their hunts of animals like seals or
whales, urged the conference to help protect them from warming.

Claude Mandil, the head of the International Energy Agency,
suggested that big developing nations like China might be
offered economic incentives for braking the rise of emissions
but would not get penalties for non-compliance. “We imagine
using something that is like a carrot without a stick,” he
said.