SATURDAY NOVEMBER 25 2000
Global climate talks end in failure
Crucial talks between the US and the UN on reducing
greenhouse gases have failed, Jan Pronk, the Dutch Environment
Minister who chaired the negotiations, said
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"We have not reached agreement. Personally I’m very
disappointed. We have invested a lot of time and energy in the
process," he said.

Mr Pronk told delegates that people around the world had had
enormous expectations for an outcome.

He suggested that the negotiation round at The Hague be
considered suspended rather than closed, a procedural move that
could allow the parlay to resume at an early date.

Negotiations to complete the ambitious 1997 Kyoto Protocol on
global warming ran throughout the night.

But they remained hamstrung by a deep dispute between the EU
and the United States on how to cut emissions of greenhouse
gases -- the byproduct of burning oil, gas and coal.

Scientists say these gases pose a potentially catastrophic risk
because they cause solar heat to be stored in the lower
atmosphere rather than let it radiate back into space.

If nothing is done to break the trend, the greenhouse effect could
severely damage the world’s climate within a century, they say.

Earlier John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, stormed out of
the talks after splits within the European Union scuppered
prospects of a deal.

Mr Prescott said: “I’m gutted. The talks are off - There’s no deal
... we came so close, we couldn’t get an agreement and it’s
unfortunate.”

Mr Prescott said he was now returning to Britain “because I
would like a day at home”.

Only minutes earlier three Scandinavian Ministers announced that
they were going home because the EU group could not accept the
last-minute deal, which was brokered in the early hours of the
morning.

Under the proposals the US would have made major concessions
on the use of so-called “carbon sinks” - the use of forests or other
areas of crops or vegetation to absorb carbon dioxide produced
by the burning of fossil fuels.

Forests and other vegetation create oxygen by absorbing carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere.

The United States had wanted to be able to use “carbon sinks” to
claim reductions in greenhouse gas output without actually cutting
the amount of fossil fuels burned to create energy.

SOURCE:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,41800,00.html 

APFN