Europeans Pressure Bush On Global Warming
L O N D O N, June 12 -- European leaders and environmentalists are turning up the heat on President Bush for his refusal to sign onto an international climate change agreement.
On the opening day of his first presidential trip to Europe this afternoon, Bush renewed his opposition to the Kyoto Accord, calling the 1997 plan to dramatically reduce greenhouse gasses "flawed" and "unrealistic."
His rejection of the treaty in March triggered a wave of criticism from the European media, including one British newspaper headline: "President George W. Bush, Polluter of the Free World."
"We regret that President Bush continues to reject the Kyoto Protocol," Swedish Environment Minister Kjell Larsson said in a written statement on behalf of the European Union today. "Abandoning the Kyoto Protocol would mean postponing international action to combat climate change for years … We cannot accept this."
In the statement, Larsson signaled the organization's rejection of Bush's proposal to continue research of technologies designed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions believed to contribute to global climate change.
European leaders have until now offered only muted criticism of the Bush's position, but that may soon change as the president and his European counterparts prepare to confront their differences over the controversial issue at the U.S.-E.U. Summit in Sweden Thursday.
European Expectations
The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5.2 percent by 2012 from 1990 levels.
Bush has argued treaty is unfair because it does not include developing nations and that it would be prohibitively expensive for the U.S. to implement. But the E.U.'s environmental commissioner, Margot Wallstroem, predicted members of the 15-nation group would not only meet the Kyoto requirements, but surpass them without putting major strain on the European economy.
An E.U. study released Monday supported the prediction, adding that E.U. members could cut the cost of implementing Kyoto by almost $1.5 billion per year with energy swapping plans and by shifting to biological fuels.
