FRANCE:French president Jacques Chirac yesterday unveiled plans for an international conference next month to promote a French proposal to reduce greenhouse gases. France has proposed to tax imports from countries that refuse to join the successor to the UN Kyoto environment pact.
French prime minister Dominique de Villepin proposed in November a carbon tax on imports of industrial products from such nations, but gave no details at the time.
Kyoto, which was agreed in 1997 and runs until 2012, binds 35 industrialised countries to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases, but the world's top polluter, the US, pulled out of the pact.
The protocol is widely seen as a small first step to combating climate change and talks are under way to introduce a tougher regime after present targets expire in 2012.
"With Europe we have to move towards a carbon tax on products from countries that refuse to commit to the regime that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012," Mr Chirac said in a new year speech.
"This is why I have called for an international conference to be held in Paris at the beginning of February to increase awareness and the essential set-up of a world environment organisation."
He gave no details of the conference.
European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson said last month he was opposed to such taxes, saying they would be hard to implement and problematic under international trade rules.
The Kyoto pact was agreed by governments at a UN conference in Kyoto, Japan, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of rich countries by some 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. - (Reuters)