The European Union has thrown down the gauntlet to the US with just three days to go at the UN climate change summit, saying it will not even debate its latest offer on greenhouse gas emissions.
In a blunt statement yesterday Ms Dominique Voynet, the French Environment Minister, said the EU wanted to discuss ways of meeting its commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol "not ways of avoiding them".
Speaking on behalf of the EU and referring directly to the US proposal on "carbon sinks", she said it was "not going to be led down a road which will destroy what has been patiently built-up over the last three years".
But Mr Frank Loy, the US Under-secretary of State for global affairs and head of its delegation, who was clearly taken aback by this scathing attack, said its proposals were "not loopholes or 11th-hour gimmicks". He said what his delegation had placed on the negotiating table in The Hague reflected "the physical, political and economic realities that we face" (in the US).
Though Mr Loy would not comment directly on the French minister's statement, he admitted that the negotiations were "entering a difficult and bewildering phase".
Ms Voynet, a member of the French Green Party, said EU experts had calculated the US offer of a ceiling on the use of forests and farmland as "sinks" could allow the Americans to increase their emissions.
"No compromise can be made," she said firmly. "The proposals [from the US] are simply not acceptable." Asked about EU member-states, such as Ireland, which had already exceeded their emissions targets for 2010, the French minister said they would all be expected to deliver on these commitments under the EU's "burden-sharing" deal.
At the plenary session, the EU Environment Commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom, said the Union was committed to starting the process of ratification "within weeks of the conclusion of this session" - but only "if the results are right".
Mr John Prescott, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister, said the 5 per cent reduction in the industrialised world's greenhouse gas emissions "may be a small step, but it is a step in the right direction". He said the task facing all sides this week was "not to rewrite the Kyoto Protocol, but to reaffirm it". Friends of the Earth said the "giant free gift" demanded by the US would "make a complete farce of the Kyoto agreement and should be rejected out of hand by other parties at the summit".
The number of people dying from heatstroke is expected to double by 2020 because of global warming, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. Tens of thousands will die worldwide especially during heatwaves in major cities, said Dr Lawrence Kalkstein, of the University of Delaware Centre for Climate Studies.
WMO wants "heat health warning systems" to be installed in cities ranging from Athens to Shanghai, with the aim of giving people two days' notice of the onset of a hot spell. So far, nine major cities have adopted the idea, and WMO's secretary general, Prof G.O.P. Obasi, told a press briefing here that many others should follow suit.
In major US cities, according to Prof Obasi, 1,500 people are dying annually during heatwaves, and he expected this would double over the next 20 years.
