BONN - Environmental activists and Greens hailed the accord wrung from climate conference talks in Bonn Monday as an important first step, but rued the concessions made to save the Kyoto protocol after the blow struck at it by the United States and the resistance of some other states.
Greens party European member of parliament Alexander de Roo described the result as a "baby-step" to combat climate change.
Protesters haul a 30-meter (30-yard) long "Life-Boat", that has been built by demonstrators from more than 25 countries, organized by Friends of the Earth International and its German affiliate, BUND during a peaceful protest the during the World Climate Conference in Bonn, western Germany, Saturday, July 21, 2001. It is made of wooden planks containing messages from concerned citizens from all over the world. (AP Photo/Hermann J. Knippertz)
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He noted the "painful concessions" that European Union and developing countries had to make to avoid another failure of the talks after that in The Hague last November.
"But the most important goal has been reached: The Kyoto protocol is ready for ratification. Finally, at the age of four, the baby has started to walk," de Roo said.
He added that the compromise was acceptable given "the dire straits" the protocol had been in since the US turned its back on it in March.
Friends of the Earth International said Kyoto was "still afloat but it's taken on water".
"The Kyoto protocol has survived the best efforts of George W. Bush and the US administration to kill it off," it said. "But obstructive behavior by members of the Umbrella group (Japan, Canada, Australia, Russia) has forced Mr (Jan) Pronk (the conference chairman) to water it down substantially."
FoE climate spokesperson Kate Hampton said keeping the protocol alive was "a triumph for citizens all over the world who have campaigned so hard for governments to act to tackle dangerous climate change.
"It is also a political disaster for President Bush, who with the arrogance of power thought that his decision to renege on Kyoto would be enough to kill it," Hampton said.
She said the price of success had been high, however, as the effect the protocol would have on climate change had been "massively eroded".
The World Wildlife Fund "welcomed the leadership shown by the ministers" at the Bonn talks. Jennifer Morgan, its climate campaign director, described the agreement reached as "a geopolitical earthquake".
"Other countries have demonstrated their independence from the Bush administration on the world's most critical environmental problem," she said.
"The rest of the world has effectively rejected claims that climate science is flawed and the costs of Kyoto implementation would be unacceptably high."
Morgan added: "This first small step is a giant leap for humanity and for the future of our planet."
In a separate German language statement, WWF quipped that the conference result put "Bush alone in the greenhouse".
But it pointed out that, according to WWF calculations, the reduction in world carbon dioxide emissions would be cut by only 1.8 percent compared with the original 1997 Kyoto target of 5.2 percent by the period 2008-2012 compared with 1990 levels.
The US group Environmental Defense, which claims 300,000 members, described the agreement as "a turning point". "It is now up to each country to ratify the treaty and ensure strong domestic policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions," its senior attorney Joseph Goffmann said.
Copyright © 2001 AFP
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