STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. forum on climate change said Monday a new U.S. energy policy would add to global warming and that he planned an international meeting to try to salvage the Kyoto climate pact.
President Bush's new energy policy "will make it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible," to meet the original targets for cutting greenhouse gases, Jan Pronk told Reuters in an interview.
"The energy plan will in my view undoubtedly increase the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rather than decrease or stabilize them," said Pronk who is also the Dutch environment minister.
Pronk, who was attending a U.N. conference in Stockholm, said he was planning a new preparatory meeting in the Netherlands June 25-28 to try to save the 1997 Kyoto pact to curb global warming.
Washington rejected the pact in March, saying it was too expensive and excluded developing countries.
Pronk said the Bush energy plan, which promotes extended use of oil, coal and nuclear power in the U.S. and offers $10 billion in tax credits for conservation, was a step in the wrong direction.
"What we might have expected was an integrated plan, energy and climate...Now we have an energy plan setting the limits for a climate plan which is still not yet there," he said.
"Everybody is waiting for the climate plan."
NEW PLAN IN TWO WEEKS
Pronk said he would present in two weeks time a final legal text of a compromise proposal seeking to rescue the Kyoto pact.
The Netherlands talks are to lay the groundwork for global climate negotiations in mid-July in Bonn, Germany. Under Pronk's plan, rich countries would meet on June 25, developing countries on June 26 and joint sessions would be held on June 27-28.
He said the United States was expected to attend the meeting.
Pronk described the global talks as "very hard" after the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto accord and called on the world's largest polluter not to urge its traditional allies Japan, Canada and Australia to follow.
Pronk said the compromise included concessions by the European Union to let Japan use its CO2-absorbing forests to limit emissions by industry and cars.
"The European Union has said that we are willing to accommodate Japan...I think it is a step forward, this flexibility," he said.
He said he doubted Japan would pull out of the Kyoto protocol.
"If there is any country in support of Kyoto it is Japan...The whole negotiation of Kyoto took place in Japan, Japan was in the lead. The difficulty at the moment is the U.S. position."
He said the EU should not try to force the United States to return to the Kyoto agreement through trade sanctions.
"Some countries are speaking about it. I'm not in favor. Sanctions are always counter-productive," he said.
©Reuters May 21 2001 1:58PM