Kyoto climate deal hopes grow

Pro-Bush supporters make their point outside the climate talks

BONN,Germany (CNN) -- Hopes are being expressed at a climate summit in Bonn that the Kyoto Protocol can be implemented without the U.S. on board.

Environment ministers and representatives from 178 countries are on Thursday opening negotiations on how to resolve remaining disputes over the 1997 treaty.

Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister and conference chairman, said he was "optimistic" a deal could be reached to bring a global warming agreement into effect.

He said the experts had cleared some of the hundreds of disputes left when the last climate conference collapsed in November, and that it was time now for politicians to make tough decisions.

"It is possible to reach a result," Pronk said. "My hopes are growing day by day."

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The meeting's aim is to write the complex rulebook for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which was renounced by U.S. President George W. Bush in March.

Bush again made clear this week that he will not bow to European and Japanese pressure over the Kyoto global warming treaty.

He said: "We believe that we ought to all work together to reduce greenhouse gases. However, the protocol that I inherited is not the proper way to proceed. We share the goals but the methodology needs to be assessed."

The protocol requires industrial countries to sharply reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for the gradual warming of the Earth.

CNN's Bettina Luscher said the reason for optimism was that none of the countries had said that agreement was impossible.

She said Japan, playing a decisive role, had proposed to change some of the rules on how so-called carbon sinks -- forests that soak up carbon dioxide -- should be counted.

But Japan's proposal is unacceptable to some environmental activists. Bill Hare of Greenpeace told CNN that Japan was just trying to avoid taking actions on reducing its emissions.

Luscher added: "With the ministers now taking over from the experts, the Bonn talks are going into a much more decisive phase.

"If they cannot cut a deal here, some are pinning their hopes on heads of government meeting at the G8 summit in Genoa this weekend."

In March, Bush said the protocol signed by his predecessor Bill Clinton and about 80 other government leaders was "fatally flawed" and bad for the U.S. economy.

Pronk said Bush's announcement derailed what he saw as real progress in the climate discussions in the previous two months.

But Pronk said he was still hopeful that electoral pressure could sway Bush, or that a subsequent administration could join after the protocol takes effect -- a prospect bushed aside by a U.S. delegate as "wishful thinking."

"A political position is never ever final," Pronk said. "In my discussions with countries, including the U.S., I always mention elections. The public is interested in a result."

About 30 countries have ratified the pact so far, but the accord can only enter into force if backed by 55 countries representing 55 percent of the industrialised world's emissions.

Pronk admitted the survival of Kyoto hangs in the balance of the talks. If no agreement is reached by the end of the Bonn talks, he said, the treaty would not be dead but "it would be utterly sick."