US President George W. Bush has dismissed a report in which the United States for the first time pinned global warming largely on human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels.
Asked whether he would seek new initiatives to combat climate change in the wake of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report to the United Nations, Mr Bush scoffed at the study and renewed his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.
"I read the report put out by the bureaucracy," Mr Bush said. His repudiation last year of the 1997 accord angered key allies in Europe and Japan.
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"The Kyoto treaty would severely damage the United States' economy. And I don't accept that. I accept the alternative that we can grow our economy and at the same time, through technologies, improve our environment," said Mr Bush.
The 15 European Union members simultaneously ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol last Friday, pledging to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide from 1990 levels by an average of five per cent during the period 2008-2012.
In order to meet that target, EU countries as a whole must cut emissions by eight per cent.
The United States, which alone accounted for 36.1 per cent of greenhouse emissions in 1990, has refused to ratify the protocol, saying it would cost too many jobs at a time of economic uncertainty.
Rather than focus on how to cut back on the so-called ``greenhouse'' gases, the EPA called for adapting to the consequences of global warming, particularly as it affects water reserves and diseases linked to higher temperatures. AFP