*{ http://www.foe.org.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/1997/19970808112004.html
2002 septembre 10

1997 aout 07 }

 *partie=titre CLIMATE TALKS FAIL AS USA AND JAPAN HOLD WORLD TO RANSOM  *partie=nil 

The climate negotiations in Bonn have ended without agreement on action to prevent dangerous climate change, Friends of the Earth International said today. The failure is due entirely to blocking action by the Japanese and US governments and comes only a month after Mr Hashimoto and President Clinton made commitments to a new start in fighting climate change at the Special Session of the United Nations in New York.

Dr Patrick Green, Climate Campaigner for Friends of the Earth International, said:
"The Japanese and American Governments are playing Russian Roulette with the world's population. Millions of people will suffer the devastating effects of dangerous climate change if they are permitted to continue with their cynical blocking tactics and fail to commit to strong domestic action to stop polluting emissions."

Instead of tabling specific proposals to cut emissions of climate changing gases, Japanese and US Government officials have spent the week-long negotiating session deliberately undermining the European Union's targets for emission cuts of 7.5% by 2005 and 15% by 2010; the US and Japan have claimed that these EU proposals lack "credibility". However,unlike Japan or the USA, the European Union is on line to achieve its Rio commitment of stabilising emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000, and is the only group of industrialised countries which has actually proposed any emission cuts at all, post 2000. Both Japan and the US have increased their emissions since the Rio Earth Summit.


The blocking action comes only one week after President Clinton stated: "I believe that the science demands that we face this challenge now. I'm positive that we owe it to our children. And I hope that we can find the wisdom and skill to do democracy's work in the next few months, to build the consensus necessary to actually make action, as opposed to rhetoric, possible."

Additionally, and contrary, to the negotiated agreement at the Rio Earth Summit, the governments of Japan and the US have attempted to shift the burden of action onto developing countries.

Friends of the Earth International has supported the proposal from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) for a legally binding cut of 20% by 2005 as the absolute minimum action necessary from industrialised nations to prevent dangerous climate change.