By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago
MONTREAL - The United States defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, saying during the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most countries to protect the earth's atmosphere.
The 10-day U.N. Climate Control Conference is considered the most important gathering on global warming since Kyoto, bringing together thousands of experts from 180 nations to brainstorm on ways to slow the alarming effects of greenhouses gases.
Leading environmental groups spent the first hours of the conference blasting Washington for not signing the landmark 1997 agreement that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world.
Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty, he takes global warming seriously and noted that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had actually gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush.
"With regard to what the United States is doing on climate change, the actions we have taken are next to none in the world," Watson told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference.
Watson said the United States spends more than $5 billion a year on efforts to slow the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere by supporting climate change research and technology, and that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012.
Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club Canada, however,
accused the world's biggest polluter of trying to derail the Kyoto accord, which has been
ratified by 140 nations.The United States, the world's largest emitter of such gases, refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and is flawed by the lack of restrictions on emissions by emerging economic powers such as China and India.
The targets for cuts vary by region: The European Union initially committed to cutting emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States had agreed to a 7 percent reduction before Bush rejected the pact in 2001.
As signatories to Kyoto's parent treaty, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Washington is still an active participant at the conference, even if it prefers investments in climate science and technology rather than mandatory emissions caps.
Many had hoped Canada would persuade its neighbor to join the Kyoto accord, though Washington no longer has that option.
"I will certainly welcome any idea that may bring the United States closer to Canada, Europe, Japan, England and other countries as partners in this convention," Canada's Environment Minister Stephane Dion said. "We cannot do without the Americans because they represent 25 percent of emissions, and an even greater percentage of the solution."
Yes, the bottom line with America is always the almighty dollar, isn't it?
The decision to not sign the Protocol is unconscionable. I'd like to see anyone defend this current idiocy.
:wink: 
You're stupidity is astonishing! P. Martin is still our PM and everything is just fine. Et tu? 
All media is biased. Just depends on what lean of the tilt you are on.
as I'm sure you've heard. McGen twin towers person is another deluded, frantic american who thinks the world can't survive without America. What a joke. Canada was doing business with Europe in the 1960's until they got talked into NAFTA, which is a disaster. We are weaning ourselves away from the US with agreements with other countries. We don't need America. But America is very interested in the fact that we have the most water on the planet. Let's see, maybe we'll sell it to em for, say, $70 a barrel? Or maybe they can just go thirsty. 
Stumble It!
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