U.S.: ‘We’re not ready’ to pledge emissions cuts

U.S.: ‘We’re not ready’ to pledge emissions cuts | updated 3:51 p.m. CT, Sat., Dec. 8, 2007

Critics clamor for action, accuse U.S. of trying to subvert U.N. negotiations

BALI, Indonesia - The United States will come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by mid-2008, and won’t commit to mandatory caps at the U.N. climate conference, the chief U.S. negotiator said Saturday.

“We’re not ready to do that here,” said Harlan Watson, the State Department’s senior climate negotiator and special representative. “We’re working on that, what our domestic contribution would be, and again we expect that sometime before the end of the Major Economies process.”
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The United States is the only major industrial country to have rejected Kyoto and its obligatory targets. The U.S. leadership instead favors a more voluntary approach, in which individual nations determine what they can contribute to a global effort, without taking on obligations under the U.N. climate treaty. ...