As the US delegation at the Montreal summit walked away from entering a dialogue with other countries about global warming, former president Bill Clinton warned yesterday: "We will have meetings like this in 40 years' time on a raft somewhere unless we do something." Frank McDonald in Montreal reports.
In a rousing speech at a side event organised by the Sierra Club of Canada at the UN climate change conference, he said it was "crazy to play games with our children's future" by failing to take actions that would "give us all a chance to share the planet together".
Mr Clinton told an enthusiastic audience of delegates and other participants in the conference that "millions and millions of jobs" could be created in the developed and developing worlds by investing in alternative technologies, such as solar, wind and geo-thermal energy.
In a scathing attack on the Bush administration's negative stance on global warming, the former president said one of the big obstacles to making progress was the "old energy economy which is well-organised, well-financed and well-connected politically".
Referring to the fact that 192 American mayors had committed their cities to making deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, Mr Clinton said countries could do the same.
Even if they couldn't agree on specific targets, there was no reason not to take action.
"We have a heavy obligation because we know now what's happening to the climate and we also know we have alternatives," he declared.
But as Machiavelli had said, "there is nothing so difficult in human affairs than to change the established order of things".
Mr Clinton recalled that he "helped to write" the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but his efforts to secure tax credits for the development of solar energy had been rebuffed.
However, he was sure the Danes were happy that 20 per cent of their electricity now came from wind power.
The former president's speech came on the last day of the summit after delegates had adopted a "rule book" to make Kyoto work and sought to reach agreement on a bland declaration to hold more talks on how to deal with the dangers posed by climate change.