EU and Japan to press US over climate change treaty

Japanese and EU officials have agreed to continue their efforts to persuade the US to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming.

Urged by a visiting EU delegation to ratify the agreement as soon as possible, Japanese officials said Japan plans to abide by its tenets.

However the Japanese have given no clear answer to the question of whether it will ratify the accord without Washington.

Japanese Environment Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, has stressed during a meeting with EU officials that the participation of the US, the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide, is crucial to the overall success of the Kyoto treaty.

"We'll have to walk a difficult path," Mr Kawaguchi later told a joint news conference, referring to the prospect of persuading the US Government to support a treaty that it has called "fatally flawed."

Mr Kawaguchi and the EU delegation acknowledged that resolving outstanding issues related to the protocol will require flexibility from all participants at a conference on global warming later this month in Bonn, Germany, the officials said.

The Bush administration dealt the accord a heavy blow by declaring it "fatally flawed" because it sets mandated reductions in emissions and does not require developed nations to make cuts.

Japan has since tried to play the role of mediator between the US and treaty supporters in Europe, pledging to negotiate changes in the protocol in a bid to cajole the Americans to sign on.

Meeting on Monday with Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelmwallen, another member of the EU delegation visiting Tokyo, Tanaka asked the EU to show flexibility at the Bonn meeting.

Ms Hjelmwallen said the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified promptly.

But she said European countries also plan to continue their own dialogue with the US.