EPA Head At Failed Potsdam Conference - US Focus "Certainly Not On (Mandatory) Caps"

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The German government, which presides over G8 this year, had been seeking agreement on a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires 2012. "We still have a lot of homework to do" to reach such an agreement, Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told media representatives. Steiner said the weekend talks had given rise to some optimism but that these discussions "still have not reached the point at which we could say the summit of Heiligendamm will bring about the grand strategy" the world needs after 2012.

Stephen Johnson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, dismissed talk of mandatory greenhouse gas reductions as "rhetoric", and said the U.S. government focus was "certainly not on (internationally binding) emissions caps."

The summit at Potsdam, 30km south of Berlin, was also expected to prepare the ground for a UN conference on greenhouse gases emissions to take place next December in Bali, Indonesia. The failure of the Potsdam summit followed warnings by scientists, environmental activists and some of the leaders at the summit that there has been enough talking on climate change, and that decisive action is now needed.

"Stop talking - act now" read a Greenpeace banner on a ship on the Havel river near the palace of Cecilienhof where the ministers met. Most environmentalists agreed that the U.S. rejection led to the failure of the summit.

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