The US and Australia, which have declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, are expected to come under renewed international pressure to reverse their stance following its entry into force yesterday.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, said he was working with his EU colleagues "to attract not only the US but also those countries with rapidly developing economies and rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions to join us in our efforts".
Mr Roche noted that Kyoto was "just the beginning of a long-term process to reduce global emissions". Its reduction targets "are only an introduction to much deeper cuts that will be required over the coming decades", he said.
According to employers' group IBEC, "the key issue going forward is how Europe can insist that both developing countries such as China, Brazil and India - currently excluded from Kyoto - and those who have chosen not to ratify such as the US and Australia will participate".
Across the world yesterday, official events were held to celebrate the entry into force of the protocol. These included a "Kyoto relay of messages" led by the Japanese Environment Minister, Ms Yuriko Koike, as master of ceremonies.
Messages were delivered by the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan; the President of the European Commission, Mr José Manuel Barroso; the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ms Wangari Maathai, and environment ministers of several countries. The video-link relay was preceded by a commemorative symposium at the Kyoto International Conference Hall where the protocol was originally adopted in December 1997. Special events also took place in Bonn, Brussels, Casablanca and New Delhi.
It was announced yesterday that the first meeting of the parties to the protocol would take place in Montreal next December, hosted by the government of Canada. The US and Australia will only have observer status at this meeting.
In the meantime, a seminar of governmental experts will be held in May in Bonn, where the secretariat of the UN Climate Change Convention is based, aimed at developing responses to global warming and review progress on Kyoto.
