COPENHAGEN (AP): Big polluter nations such as the United States, China and India should sign on to the next global climate treaty that will replace the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gas emissions, Indonesia's environment minister said Tuesday.
"I don't see how they cannot join," Rachmat Witoelar said during an environmental conference in Copenhagen. "The most important thing is whether these countries are aware that there is a danger posed by climate change."
His Danish counterpart, Connie Hedegaard, who was hosting the two-day conference of European and Asian environmental officials, concurred.
"It is a European priority to get as many countries and contributors on board as possible," Hedegaard said. "Including of course China and India."
She said she hoped delegates would back Denmark's efforts to achieve a new climate treaty at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009.
Witoelar called that goal "realistic," adding that action was needed soon. "We cannot quarrel while the boat is capsizing."
The Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. treaty which expires in 2012, requires 35 industrial nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases collectively by 5 percent from 1990 levels.
The U.S, which is responsible for about one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, has rejected Kyoto, saying it would hurt its economy. It also objects that the protocol allows exemptions for rapidly industrializing economies like China andIndia.
China, the world's biggest producer and user of coal, is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter within the next several years.
Witoelar said Indonesia was already seeing the effect of climate change in devastating droughts and flooding. He declined to say whether the country would agree to emissions cuts under a new climate treaty, but said Indonesia would cut down on carbondioxide emissions by halting uncontrolled land-clearing fires that routinely send a blanket of choking haze to neighboring countries.
"I'm aware of statistics that we are emitting CO2 because of forest fires. So we'll stop the forest fires," he said. "It's as easy as that."
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