In a landmark speech, the next president pledges to revive Kyoto Protocol and end American isolationism over climate changeProspects for success in the world's struggle to combat global warming have been transformed at a stroke after US President-elect Barack Obama made it clear that America would play its full part in renewing the Kyoto Protocol climate-change treaty. His words, in effect, brought an end to eight years of wilful climate obstructionism by the administration of George Bush, who withdrew the US from Kyoto in March 2001, thus doing incalculable damage to the efforts of the international community to construct a unified response to the threat. The Bush withdrawal set back the international effort by nearly a decade - years in which it became increasingly clear that the warming of the atmosphere being caused by greenhouse gas emissions was proceeding much faster than UN scientists thought it would. Although Mr Bush and the oilman-caucus in his government justified their Kyoto withdrawal by casting doubt on whether climate change was happening, or was caused by human actions, by last year the scientific consensus on both propositions was so great that Bush aides had to reluctantly accept both were true. But Mr Bush's diplomatic stance hardly changed. In contrast, the President-elect's remarks, in a video address to a global warming summit in California attended by US governors and representatives from other nations, instantly injected a new mood of optimism among negotiators preparing for the conference at which Kyoto will be renewed and extended, due to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Prospects for success in the world's struggle to combat global warming have been transformed at a stroke after US President-elect Barack Obama made it clear that America would play its full part in renewing the Kyoto Protocol climate-change treaty.
His words, in effect, brought an end to eight years of wilful climate obstructionism by the administration of George Bush, who withdrew the US from Kyoto in March 2001, thus doing incalculable damage to the efforts of the international community to construct a unified response to the threat.
The Bush withdrawal set back the international effort by nearly a decade - years in which it became increasingly clear that the warming of the atmosphere being caused by greenhouse gas emissions was proceeding much faster than UN scientists thought it would.
Although Mr Bush and the oilman-caucus in his government justified their Kyoto withdrawal by casting doubt on whether climate change was happening, or was caused by human actions, by last year the scientific consensus on both propositions was so great that Bush aides had to reluctantly accept both were true. But Mr Bush's diplomatic stance hardly changed. In contrast, the President-elect's remarks, in a video address to a global warming summit in California attended by US governors and representatives from other nations, instantly injected a new mood of optimism among negotiators preparing for the conference at which Kyoto will be renewed and extended, due to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009.
