THE breakdown of talks aimed at tackling global warming had its roots in
disagreements between Europe and the US over whether they had struck a secret
deal three years before in Kyoto. The US insisted the deal allowed it to use its
huge forests to avoid reducing carbon emissions. The Europeans denied such a
deal was struck.
In the end it was the Greens who halted talks at The Hague to finalise the
Kyoto Protocol, the landmark agreement designed to limit the human impact on
world climate. Three key European Union environment ministers—two of them
leading members of national…
