Clinton steals show at U.N. climate talks

Reuters
Sat Dec 10, 2005

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told U.N. climate talks in Canada on Friday that the Bush administration was "flat wrong" to reject the Kyoto accord and said cutting greenhouse gases was good for business and the planet.

In an impassioned speech to hundreds of delegates and nongovernmental groups, Clinton rejected a major tenet of the Bush administration's argument for pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol emissions pact in 2001.

Clinton, whose administration negotiated Kyoto in 1997 but never submitted it to a sceptical Senate for ratification, said the belief that Kyoto would hurt the economies of developed nations was "flat wrong."

"We know from every passing year we get more and more objective data that if we had a serious, disciplined effort to apply on a large scale existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies that we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, our economies," he said.

Under Kyoto, some 40 industrialised nations agreed to cut emissions in 2008-12 by over 5 percent from 1990 levels, but Bush says mandatory cuts on emissions from fossil fuels would hamper growth and job creation.

Clinton said a serious commitment to a clean energy future was the solution and this would lead to jobs growth, just like the tech boom of the 1990s fuelled an employment boom.

"We can create jobs out of wind energy, solar energy, out of biofuels, out of hybrid engines," he said.

Stricter efficiency standards for building and appliances would also boost jobs.

"In America, there's no telling how many jobs we could create if we just made the decision that in the rebuilding of New Orleans it would become America's first green city," he said.

Talks in Montreal are trying to take the Kyoto Protocol forward after its first phase ends in 2012 but the discussions have dragged in part because of U.S. objections to any binding commitments on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Many delegations say efforts to curb global warming will be futile unless the United States, responsible for about a quarter of the world's greenhouse emissions, fully participates.

Clinton's speech drew applause and cheers from the audience.

"I don't know if it will have an impact (on the meeting), but I liked what he said. He's talking to the committed here," said Grant McVicar, a member of host Canada's delegation.

Many scientists say rising levels of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels will lead to rising seas, melting of glaciers and ice caps and more extreme weather events, including storms like Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans.

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