"Europe to U.S.: Hurry on Global Warming"

WASHINGTON European officials encouraged U.S. senators on Tuesday to move quickly to pass legislation that would commit the United States to mandatory reduction of carbon emissions to slow global warming.

The officials including Germany's Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and his Danish counterpart, Connie Hedegaard, met with members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to discuss legislation under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

The European officials were in the United States in part to attend a daylong conference on the issue Monday at the United Nations. That meeting was aimed at adding new urgency to international talks ahead of the annual U.N. climate treaty conference scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia. The White House is sponsoring its own environmental forum this week.

The officials expressed optimism that Congress is considering several bills that would move the United States closer to European commitments on emission limits.

"It is our impression from being here that things are moving in the U.S.," Hedegaard said in a press conference after the meeting.

But she said Europe was losing patience with the United States because the Bush administration continues to reject mandatory caps agreed to by 175-nations under the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997.

"You cannot just have voluntary goals, you have to have mandatory targets," she said.

The pact requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. Kyoto set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed unilaterally to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Some Europeans had expressed fears ahead of Monday's talks in New York that the White House would use its forum this week to launch talks rivaling the U.N. climate treaty negotiations.
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The U.S. was represented at the event by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. She said “Put simply, the world needs a technological revolution. Existing energy technologies alone will not meet the global demand for energy while also reducing emissions to necessary levels.”

Schwarzenegger and Gore also spoke at the U.N. summit.