John Myers Jr., Staff ReporterMONTREAL, Canada:
FORMER UNITED States president Bill Clinton has come out in clear support of the Kyoto Protocol, chastising his own country's government for not signing the agreement which commits developed countries to meeting greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
Mr. Clinton dismissed arguments by the U.S. and Australia that targets set out under the protocol were overbearing and posed a threat to their economic viability. Instead, the former U.S. president charged that "if we had a serious disciplined effort to apply on a large scale the existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies, we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen and not weaken our economy."
CLIMATE CHANGE ACCELERATED
Mr. Clinton, who was speaking on yesterday's closing day of the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Canada on the invitation of the city, pointed out that climate change was real and was being accelerated by human activities.
"If the developed world wants to do the right thing by assisting the developing world and share the benefits of the future, it would require far more than reducing agricultural subsidies," he said to widespread applause from those in attendance at the conference which was held at the Palais des Congres.
He noted that the U.S. had signed the
protocol and implemented measures to cut emissions during his administration, but the process was disrupted when his term in office ended.
In the meantime, the Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has defended his criticisms of developed countries like the U.S. and Australia for not doing enough to address climate change. Speaking at a joint press conference with Mr. Clinton, the Canadian Prime Minister said he had no apologies, emphasising that there needed to be a multilateral approach to addressing the impact of climate change.
One of the key objectives of the conference, which is the first meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol and the 11th meeting of the Conference Of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to forge a commitment of the COP to pursue talks on greenhouse gas reduction targets after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol will end.
