Delegates from 180 countries were struggling last night to save the UN climate-change summit from collapse after an 11thhour set of compromise proposals was rejected by the EU as unacceptable.
Ms Dominique Voynet, the French Environment Minister, said the proposals amounted to a re-negotiation of commitments already made by industrialised countries under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The compromise proposals were put forward on Thursday night by Mr Jan Pronk, the Dutch Environment Minister, who is chairing the conference, in an effort to bridge the gulf between the EU and the US-led "umbrella group" of countries.
But Ms Voynet, speaking for the EU, said they were not a step in the right direction, but a step backwards. "We are not prepared to sign a blank cheque or rubberstamp a bureaucratic set-up which will not deliver cuts," she said.
The draft deal proposed by Mr Pronk was also denounced by environmental groups at the summit. Friends of the Earth International described it as "junk", saying it could allow emissions to increase by more than 5 per cent.
This figure would be the exact opposite of the 5.2 per cent reduction target set by the Kyoto protocol, said one of its climate campaigners, Ms Frances Mac Guire, urging the EU to stand firm against "a squalid deal".
Environmentalists complained bitterly that Mr Pronk's draft was far too favourable to the US and its allies because it failed to set limits on the use of emission trading and other loopholes.
But Mr Frank Loy, head of the US delegation, said the US was also deeply disappointed by the proposals, which it considered unacceptably imbalanced, though the Americans would continue to negotiate to reach a good agreement.
The most important issue at stake is the extent to which the US and its supporters are prepared to reduce their own emissions at home rather than relying on loopholes, such as claiming credit for existing forests and farmland as "carbon sinks".
Figures produced by Green peace and other environmental groups suggested the "Pronk proposals" would allow the US, which is responsible for 24 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, to add a further 50 million tonnes a year to its total.
Mr Bill Hare, of Greenpeace, said he believed the US was making "a historic mistake" by failing to emulate the EU in cutting emissions. With the Netherlands Congress Centre due to be vacated by lunchtime today, speculation last night as bilateral talks continued was that a compromise, based on carbon tonne credits, would be reached.
Meanwhile, Mr Tucker Gomberg, formerly an MP in Alberta, sounded a hunting horn in the media centre and made an emotional speech saying he was ashamed of being a Canadian because of his delegation's stance. Then he burned his passport.
