USA: Condoleezza Rice says U.S will aim to support UN climate change goals during White House climate conference

U.S. vows to support UN proposals amid protests condemning climate conference. The U.S.-sponsored meeting of major emitting countries is aimed at supporting and accelerating the U.N. process on climate change, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted on Thursday (September 27) Skeptics, including dozens of protesters gathered outside the U.S. conference, have expressed concern the climate meeting might be an attempt to circumvent the United Nations process. But in opening a two-day session at the State Department, Rice said the United States "supports the goals" of a U.N. summit on climate earlier this week and stresses "the United States takes climate change very seriously." About 60 protesters, many of them from Greenpeace and other environmental groups, chanted anti-Bush administration slogans and held up placards outside the State Department while diplomatic security formed a line preventing them from getting into the building. Calling the Bush Administrations Climate conference a "sham" Environmental acctivist Ted Glick, from Chesapeak Climate Action told the crowd "George Bush called this conference to try to abstract, to disrupt and to move in the wrong way on global warming." he United Nations meeting on Monday drew more than 80 heads of state and government to focus on the problem of global warming. The Washington meeting drew ministers from the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters -- including the United States and China. It was called by President George W. Bush, whose administration has been criticized for refusing to adopt mandatory limits for climate-warming emissions. The White House favors "aspirational" targets. By most counts, the United States is the No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles. But at least one study this year indicated that fast-developing China is now in the lead. Other participants are the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. This meeting in Washington and an earlier one at the United Nations on Monday are preludes to a negotiating session in December in Bali, Indonesia, aimed at formulating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

ITN Source | September 28, 2007

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