U.S. feels heat at climate meeting

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – The United States is the big odd man out as diplomats, scientists and environmentalists from more than 190 countries gather here at the 10th meeting of the United Nations’ Convention on Climate Change.

The convention’s Kyoto Protocol, with its mandatory reduction of “greenhouse gases” that cause global warming, goes into force next year. Discussions on new limits are expected to begin here when official delegations arrive Wednesday, near the end of the 12-day conference.

Among major countries, only the United States and Australia have failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, in which signatory nations agree to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Observers say the United States is being shut out as the rest of the world attempts to meet the reductions, including a potentially lucrative mechanism by which companies can trade reductions in carbon emissions in a kind of global pollution market.

The United States, which produces 30 percent of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

U.S. officials last week acknowledged a global rise in temperatures caused by human activity, but said the increase had not yet reached “dangerous” levels requiring drastic action.

In 2002, Bush committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by the year 2012 but linked the reductions to growth in gross domestic product. U.S. officials said emissions likely would be 15 percent above 1990 levels, far higher than mandated in the Kyoto pact. The U.S. plan is based chiefly on voluntary measures.