Jan Pronk, Urged countries to focus on penalties
The United States is expected to come under growing pressure in the coming months to sign up to the Kyoto Treaty on global warming following broad agreement to implement the accord by 178 countries. The deal, reached in Bonn by most of the world's environment ministers, was struck after large concessions were made, most notably to Japan, but also to Canada, Australia and Russia.
Environment ministers reached a last-minute compromise deal this morning to salvage the Kyoto Protocol. European officials said that the deal was reached on cutting the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming at the meeting in Germany.
A spokesman for the European Union's lead negotiator, Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze, said that Japan had secured a special exemption agreement to settle its hesitations about mechanisms for legally enforcing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
However, other officials have said that it is not quite clear what precise deal has been struck for Japan. Tokyo's consent has been crucial to bringing the accord into force since the US President rejected the 1997 pact in March. George W Bush said that its mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would hurt the economy of his country, which is the world's biggest polluter.
The talks' chairman, the Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, had urged the 180 countries attending the talks this morning to focus on resolving the issue of penalties for countries failing to meet their targets for reducing emissions.
Olivier Deleuze had warned of dire consequences if they failed to reach agreement. Twenty developed countries, led by the EU, later pledged to contribute $410m a year to help poorer countries cope with climate change.
The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has welcomed the compromise reached today. He said that the agreements gave a strong signal to the global economy that emission limitation must become part and parcel of the production and consumption process.
