French President Jacques Chirac will tell delegates in The Hague gathered at a UN conference on climate next week they should stick to three-year-old promises to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Chirac, who goes to The Hague on Monday, will say that an agreement being hammered out there must not undermine the still-unratified Kyoto Protocol, which committed 38 developed countries to reduce fossil fuel gases by an average of 5.2 percent by 2012, officials here said.
Chirac is to single out the United States for special criticism. Recently he slammed the ""extraordinary display of selfishness shown by several large countries, particularly the US, who prefer to take a policy of letting things go to ruin."
The French president has made it clear he is disappointed with the sluggish implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and believes that France should lead the way in the "urgent" fight against global warming.
France currently holds the presidency of the European Union, and Chirac believes the EU has a "strong and serious attitude" towards global warming which should form the basis of a new agreement, presidency officials said -- PARIS (AFP)
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