PRESS CONFERENCE BY EUROPEAN UNION

The unanimous ratification by the European Union of the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change provided momentum and leadership for international action on one of the most severe problems facing humankind, according to environmental officials from Union countries, who briefed correspondents at Headquarters this morning.

The press conference, also covering the Union's stance on the United States rejection of the Protocol, took place moments after all 15 members of the Union, along with the European Commission, deposited their instruments of ratification with the United Nations.

The Protocol will enter into force 90 days after it is ratified by 55 countries, including industrialized States accounting for at least 55 per cent of that group’s 1990-level of greenhouse gas emissions.

"Today is an important day for the environment and for the process of international cooperation," said the Acting President of the Council of Ministers of the Union, Jaume Matas, who is the Spanish Minister of the Environment.  The simultaneous action fulfilled, he said, the commitment made to ratify the Protocol well enough in advance so it could enter into force before the World Summit on Sustainable Development at the end of August of this year, for which it could be a model instrument.

With the ratifications, he said, the European Union was affirming that only international cooperation could combat climate change and that the Kyoto Protocol was the best first step to taking concrete measures on curbing greenhouse gases over the long-term.

Margot Wallstrom, European Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Pronk, Minister of the Environment of the Netherlands and Kjell Larsson, Minister of the Environment of Sweden also spoke at the press conference.

According to Mrs. Wallstrom, the ratifications also showed that the Union was willing to exercise leadership on the issue.  Climate change affected all countries, she said, but the industrialized world must take the lead.  To meet the second element for entry into force of the Protocol, a substantial portion of developed countries must ratify.  She urged others to ratify before the World Summit.

The United States, she said, was the only country to have rejected the global framework for addressing climate change and the European Union urged that country to reconsider its position.  The domestic plan announced by the Bush administration would allow a 30 per cent increase in greenhouse gases by 2012. That was inconsistent with the United States obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and certainly insufficient to meet the challenge.

The Union was meanwhile going ahead, she said, with plans to meet its obligations in ways that encouraged economic growth.  The two goals were in no way contradictory.

Correspondents asked whether there was any hope that the United States would reverse its position on the Protocol before the World Summit and what message today's event should send to Washington.  Recent talks, said Mrs. Wallstrom, have not encouraged hope.  The unanimous ratification of the Union should be a reminder that only way to counter such trans-border problems was "being true to a multi-national cause," she said.

Without the United States ratification, that of the Russian Federation and Japan would be necessary to cross the 55 per cent threshold, she said in answer to another question.  The process in Japan was nearly complete; Russia might not be ready before autumn.

In response to other questions on the topic, she said the science confirming global warming was stronger than ever.  Even in the Bush Administration there was general acceptance that climate change was occurring.  The United States was even participating in a joint working group to cooperate on technical aspects of measurement and assessment of greenhouse factors.

It was also well accepted, she continued, that the development of new technology, such as that needed to reduce climate change, could spur new investment and thus foster economic growth.  In all such economic equations, however, the cost for environmental degradation had to be taken into account. 

Mr. Larsson said the United States would soon realize that lagging behind in efficiency, and in new technologies, would leave it at an economic disadvantage, and lagging behind in leadership would leave it at a political disadvantage.

Mr. Pronk added that such considerations made it inevitable that that country would rejoin the international efforts in the next couple of years, especially if the binding threshold for the Protocol's entering into force were achieved and that Government was left out of consequent negotiations.

"It's step by step, but this first step is crucial in order to go ahead,” he said, in regard to reaching the threshold.  "And, at a certain moment, they'll join us."

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