US "Won't Rule Out" Joining Kyoto Successor - Reuters

[hatrack]

LONDON - Washington cannot rule out joining any successor to the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012 but such a move would face big legal hurdles, the US chief climate negotiator said on Monday.

President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from Kyoto in 2001, saying its caps on greenhouse gases would cost jobs and that poor nations were wrongly excluded until 2012. "I never rule anything out," Harlan Watson told Reuters during a climate conference at Chatham House, London, when asked if Washington might re-join the 163-nation pact beyond 2012.

He noted that many US Democrats and some Republicans favour a Kyoto-style system to cap emissions. Republican "Senator (John) McCain and other potential (presidential) candidates have spoken very favourably for a cap and trade system," he said. Bush will step down in January 2009.

"If you're looking beyond 2012 it's all speculation," Watson added. "I can't speak for what the next administration might do."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37014/story.htm

My. How encouraging.

[phantom power]

1. we're saved.

:eyes: