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wednesday 28 march
2001
world faces climate disaster
as bush rats on kyoto treaty
The world is tottering on the brink of
climate disaster today, as the White House
confirrned that President Bush has decided to
rat on the 1997 Kyoto Treaty. At Kyoto, the
world's developed countries agreed for the
first time to cut emissions of climate
changing gases. White House officials have
taken legal advice on how to pull out of the
Treaty, which the US signed but which remains
unratified by the Senate.
The United States, with 5% of the world's
population, emits more than 20% of the
world's carbon dioxide, the main climate
changing gas. The US promised to cut
emissions by 7% over 1990 levels by 2012 at
the latest, but US emissions in fact rose by
more than 10% between 1990 and 2000.
George Bush's campaign for the US
presidency was backed by major US oil giants
including Exxon, which also led the campaign
in the US against the Kyoto Treaty. The
Republican presidential campaign claimed that
if Kyoto was ratified, US citizens might have
to "walk to work".
Commenting, Charles Secrett, Director of
Friends of the Earth England, Wales and
Northern Ireland said:
"George Bush's decision to rat on the Kyoto
Treaty is grim news. When the Hague talks
collapsed last year because of US
intransigence, Friends of the Earth warned
that the world would pay the price in
tears.
Millions of people - in the US as well as in
other countries - face the loss of their
homes, their jobs and even their lives
because of climate change. But this ignorant,
short-sighted and selfish politician, long
since firmly jammed into the pockets of the
oil lobby, clearly couldn't care less. The
talks in Bonn in July must now concentrate on
world action independent of the US."
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