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US will return to Kyoto Protocol, says France
The United States will sooner or later rejoin the Kyoto Protocol, even though the Bush administration still shuns the United Nations' global warming pact, French Ecology Minister Serge Lepeltier said Tuesday. Lepeltier, speaking on France-Inter radio, said that the Protocol, due to take effect February 16, would become an irresistible force. "I am convinced that we are going to bring the United States into Kyoto, even if it doesn't want to," he said.| "At least, that's what I told M. Chirac." |
Lepeltier suggested the US federal government would be caught in a "vice". It would be pressured on one side by US firms doing business in Europe and on the other by US states, such as California, which are starting to take individual action on climate change, he predicted.| And next, the thinly veiled threat: |
"American corporations which have operations in Europe ... are going to have to meet the rules which we set in place to uphold Kyoto, at least on (European) soil," Lepeltier said. | Or they might just decide to move somewhere else |
"It may not happen today and it may not happen tomorrow, but the United States will inevitably have to develop these technologies because they do not want to lag, which would be a major risk for their companies." | It's not the technology they're worried about... |
Posted by: Seafarious 2004-12-07 |
