international climate talks 2001
Update: 16th July , 2001
The press speculation about Japan's position has become intense, overnight reports that Prime Minister Koizumi had said that Japan would not ratify Kyoto without the US were denied privately by Japanese delegates but in the absence of any public statement we hit hard at the Japanese government in our press briefing this morning, hard enough so that the Japanese delegation had to respond with a press statement of their own.
The statement said that Japan still intends to ratify and see the Protocol enter into force by 2002 but that they still feel the US should be in the Protocol. So do we. So do the American people. So do just about all of the countries of the world except Australia, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Canada. But the point is that Bush isn't going to do it. Until the US comes to its senses, Japan must ratify, and keep the process moving forward.
The first day of the negotiations in Bonn had a number of surprises. First of all, Chairman Jan Pronk of the Netherlands formally opened the Conference this morning, which was not scheduled to happen until later in the week. Getting news of this just before 10 AM, delegates, press and NGOs went running over to the Conference hall to see what was happening.
It turned out that the Chairman, responding to pressure from the G77 countries, formally opened the conference in order to put pressure on the delegates to negotiate seriously. So while it turned out to be no big deal, it was a positive sign that some positive work will get done in the next 10 days.
Let's hope so. We and the other NGOs that are here will be focussing all our efforts on not letting the countries that are here hide behind US intransigence and Japanese obfuscation, and get on with the business at hand. More tomorrow.
Steve Sawyer - Greenpeace International
