LONDON -- "If nothing moves forward in Bonn then we will lose momentum and the process will sink," said Olivier Deleuze, the energy minister of Belgium, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency at the moment.
"The key question is . . . will the U.S. let the other parties go ahead?" asked the EU's environmental commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, as the countries that signed the Kyoto accord on climate change gathered for the meeting in the former German capital on 16-27 July. "That is at least what President Bush promised."
The U.S. president was lying. Having paid his debt to the oil and gas industry (which put 78 percent of its presidential campaign contributions into the Bush camp's coffers) by abruptly cancelling America's signature on the Kyoto treaty, George W. Bush's highest priority was to ensure that the treaty didn't go into effect anyway. Global warming is a long-term problem, but Bush's priorities operate on a much shorter time-scale.