Environment ministers, senior officials and diplomats from more than 160 countries are flying into Bonn today for an intensive round of negotiations aimed at salvaging the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
However, with the US standing firmly against mandatory cuts in the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for causing climate change, there appears to be little prospect that agreement can be reached by the end of this week. The European Union had been hoping that Japan would agree to ratify the protocol even without US participation, but the latest signals from Tokyo suggest it will be seeking revisions to placate the Bush administration.
These could involve changing both the targets and timetables for the world's industrialised countries to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to bring the US back into the Kyoto process.
Last March, President Bush announced the US was opting out of Kyoto because it was "unfair" in exempting major developing countries such as China and India and that its implementation would hit the US economy.
The treaty, negotiated in Kyoto in 1997, calls for 38 industrial nations to reduce their 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5.2 per cent by 2012. It would only apply to developing countries after that date.
The EU remains committed to ratification and is pressing Japan and other industrialised countries to follow suit so that the protocol can become effective by the end of 2002, whether or not the US goes along with it.
But the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Junichiro Koizumi, yesterday ruled out the prospect of a deal being struck in Bonn and said it was more likely to be reached at the next climate change summit in Marrakesh later this year.
In a television interview, Mr Koizumi said his government was committed to keeping alive the process initiated in its ancient capital four years ago. "Japan will do its utmost so that the protocol can be enacted in 2002."
For the treaty to take effect, it must be ratified by 55 countries, including industrialised states accounting for 55 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in 1990. As the world's second largest economy, Japan's participation is crucial.
The Bonn summit, held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, follows the collapse of negotiations in The Hague last November over irreconcilable differences between the EU and the US.
Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, Green peace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which are also represented in Bonn, have been strongly urging the EU not to water down commitments made in Kyoto.
They point out that the target cuts in emissions are modest compared to what scientists say will be required over coming decades to avert disastrous drought and floods.
