Clinton Speaks Anyway

Despite Shrub's tantrum, Bubba spoke in Montreal.

Clinton, in an applause-filled appearance at the Montreal meeting, said President Bush was "flat wrong" to claim that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to fight global warming would damage the U.S. economy. But the ex-president urged the negotiators from more than 180 nations to find a way to "work with" the current U.S. administration.

Throughout the two-week conference, the Bush administration repeatedly rejected Canadian and other efforts to draw it into future global talks on emission controls, just as in 2001 it renounced the existing Kyoto Protocol and its mandatory cuts.

Canadian officials said the U.S. delegation was displeased with the last-minute scheduling of the Clinton speech. But U.S. delegation chief Paula Dobriansky issued a statement saying events like Clinton's appearance "are useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change."

Despite Clinton's message, many here seemed resigned to waiting for a political change in Washington.

"It's such a pity the United States is still very much unwilling to join the international community, to have a multilateral effort to deal with climate change," said the leader of the African group of nations here, Kenya's Emily Ojoo Massawa.

"The administration just doesn't seem to get it. They don't understand the world is suffering from climate change," said Jennifer Morgan of the environmentalist group Climate Action Network.

The U.S. delegation had little public comment, maintaining the low profile it has generally kept at recent annual climate conferences.

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In a news conference after his speech, Clinton suggested the Europeans and others not force "targets" on Washington, but look for agreement on specific energy-saving projects.

"If we just keep working with the administration, we'll find some specific things we can do that are consistent with the targets," he said, but "without embracing the targets."

Most of the conference was devoted to the nuts-and-bolts work of the climate pacts.

Environmentalists were pleased at agreements in such areas as how to quantify gas emissions and how to penalize nations that do not meet Kyoto targets.

"They've released the brakes on the Kyoto process," said Greenpeace International's Bill Hare.

Others expressed disappointment, meanwhile, there was not more progress here in such areas as helping finance developing countries' adaptation to damaging climate change.