U.S. chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson said on Monday that his government rejected a greenhouse gas emission cut target set by rich nations as part of a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new climate deal for the next two years.

 

The U.S. wanted the U.N. climate change conference to end on Friday with an accord to start two years of negotiations on a new global climate treaty, he told a press conference here.

 

"It's prejudging what the outcome should be," he said, commenting on a draft which reportedly suggests that rich nations should cut emissions of greenhouse gases by between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

 

A draft final text by Indonesia, South Africa and Australia says evidence by the U.N. climate panel demands cuts of 25-40 percent by rich nations to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

 

"Our opinion about Kyoto has not changed," Watson said. President George W. Bush opposes Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by five percent below 1990 by 2012.

 

"We don't want to start out with numbers," Watson said, adding that the 25-40 percent range was based on "many uncertainties" and a small number of scientific studies by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

 

As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States is the only industrialized country that does not ratify the Protocol.

 

However, a statement of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, which was distributed on Monday in Bali, said, "I urge the delegates in Bali to be bold and strong. Nothing less will save our planet for our grandchildren."

 

Boxer, who is also Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in the statement on the U.N. climate change conference in Bali, "As Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I want the delegates in Bali to know that change is already happening in Washington."

 

The ongoing U.N climate change conference hosted by Indonesia in Bali is tasked with drawing up a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new climate deal in the next two years before the current phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2007)