The Bush administration rejected pleas yesterday from a European Union delegation visiting Washington, D.C., to try to get President Bush to reconsider his decision to abandon the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The top-level delegation met with U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman and White House and State Department officials. Kjell Larsson, Sweden’s environment minister, said the E.U. had hoped to find “a small opening” or sign that talks on the treaty could be revived, but “we didn’t get that.” The U.S. emits about 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, but Whitman yesterday described the treaty as “unfair to the United States.” Meanwhile, moderate Republicans in Congress are beginning to feel the heat from constituents, as Bush rolls back one environmental protection after another. Charlie Cook, a veteran handicapper of political races, said that Republicans “need to do a couple green things really soon” to keep control of Congress in the 2002 elections.
