Dimas turns up the heat on US and Australia

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is stepping up pressure on the US and Australia to ratify a post-2012 international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

His demand comes as EU and international officials from EU member states and other governments meet to approve a United Nations report on adaptation to climate change.

The report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on ‘Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability’, follows another IPCC volume in February on the effects of climate change. A third report on mitigating climate change will be published on 4 May.

Together the reports pull together the latest climate change findings from over 2,000 scientific experts and are expected to support climate change policies around the world.

Speaking at the opening of talks on the latest report, Dimas said the IPCC findings left wealthy countries without an excuse for failing to adopt binding targets to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. In particular, he said it was time for the US to follow the EU example.

"I expect the US to co-operate more closely and not to continue to adopt a negative attitude [in the climate-change debate]," said Dimas. "It is absolutely necessary that they move, otherwise other countries… have no reason to move."

The US is widely criticised in Europe for refusing to ratify Kyoto or support CO2 emission trading. But Dimas said Australia was also ignoring the latest IPCC scientific warnings. "I cannot understand why Australia has not ratified Kyoto," said the commissioner. "Only political pride - if I can put it in a nice way - prevents them ratifying now."

Dimas said he hoped all developed countries would be part of an EU-style carbon-trading system after 2012, when the first round of Kyoto commitments expires.

Australia on Saturday (31 March) turned lights off in Sydney to raise awareness of climate change but has so far refused to adopt binding national targets for CO2 reduction or emission trading. City mayor Clover Moore said that the hour-long blackout was intended to make citizens think how their own actions could combat global warming.

US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman welcomed the IPCC findings but said technological developments alone would ensure that the US reduces its CO2 emissions.

Friday’s adaptation report will, according to IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri, go further than three previous assessments published since 1990.

In particular, Pachauri said the new report would look more closely at regional differences and the areas more vulnerable to climate change. It would also examine the impact of climate change on water supplies and human health.

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is stepping up pressure on the US and Australia to ratify a post-2012 international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.