War of words over green accord

Protesters at The Hague were critical of U.S. demands for green concessions

LONDON, England -- Britain and France are continuing to blame each other for the collapse of international talks on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The two-week conference in The Hague ended without agreement on measures to fight global warming on Saturday, after the U.S. and European Union failed to settle a bitter wrangle over ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions implicated in climate change.

British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott criticised his French counterpart, Dominique Voynet, saying she had got "cold feet" over the proposed deal.

Prescott also said that Voynet had been tired and could not understand the complexities of what was on offer.

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"Madame Voynet made it very clear she was tired," Prescott said. "She said she couldn't understand all the details."

A furious Voynet responded by claiming the French stance against proposals accepting concessions towards the U.S. had the support of an "overwhelming majority" of the EU -- and she accused Prescott of male chauvinism.

"John Prescott's statement is unacceptable -- both what he said and how he said it. It was mediocre and shabby," she said in an interview with France Inter radio.

"John Prescott shows himself to be deeply macho. A woman is of course tired, takes fright and doesn't understand things," she said, her voice dripping with irony.

"Europe spoke with one voice and held together and without doubt John Prescott was frustrated that he could not impose his will," Voynet said, adding that divisions within the EU made it a "political dwarf" by comparison with the United States.

"(The deal was) so unacceptable as to be not even worth discussing," Voynet said earlier when speaking on behalf of all 15 member-states of the EU, courtesy of France's current tenure in the role EU president.

Prescott replied: "Well, if she said she couldn't understand the deal, how could she know that it was a bad deal?"

Britain's junior environment minister, Michael Meacher, said the failure of the climate talks need not spell the end of efforts to coordinate cuts to emissions of harmful gases.

"We did fail last night. It is a tragedy, but it's a reversible tragedy and we will now put together those last final loose ends that we didn't have the time to do last night," Meacher said.

A follow-up conference is planned for May next year in Bonn, Germany.

Impact being felt

He said that no country could afford to ignore the issue much longer.

"This is not something that the world can walk away from. Every country in the world is a victim of climate change -- we all have the same incentive to reach agreement and we will."

Negotiations are set to resume next May. Experts say that the failure in The Hague to agree on cuts of emissions gases such as carbon dioxide could bring more ravaging storms and floods such as those in Asia, Europe and Australia this year.

The EU-U.S. dispute was mainly over a U.S. plan to allow developed nations to count carbon dioxide soaked up by forests against targets for cutting emissions.

The U.S. position was supported by Canada, Australia and Japan, while French doubts about the potential effectiveness of the deal proposed by Prescott was echoed by Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

Further obstacles to a meaningful agreement to reduce emissions were presented by the Saudi Arabian delegation that put forward 200 amendments aimed at scuppering the talks. The Saudis believe the agreement would have placed too much responsibility upon OPEC and developing countries.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has issued a report that highlighting the impact global warming is already having on the planet.

South Pacific island nations have, according to World Bank studies, suffered more than US$1.0 billion in damages in the past 10 years from rising sea levels and tropical storms, the World Bank said.

The World Bank warns small island nations face millions of dollars in damages each year as global warming causes sea levels to rise further and fierce tropical storms to increase.

The report warns that the rising temperatures not only causes polar ice to melt and sea levels to rise, but also increases the intensity and frequency of tropical storms.

Reuters contributed to this report.

No deal on global warming as climate talks collapse
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NASA urges practical solutions for limiting greenhouse emissions
August 16, 2000

UN Convention on Climate Control
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Greenpeace International

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