ANALYSIS / UN Climate Change Summit: The world is moving forward to confront the challenge of global warming, whatever the US government says or does about it. That's the main message from what's been happening at the UN climate change summit in Montreal this week.
However weak the words of the final declaration, it is now clear that most of the 180-plus countries represented here have decided they must take steps to deal with what is now widely accepted as the most serious environmental threat confronting humanity.
Even the commitment to "engage in a dialogue, without prejudice to any future negotiations, commitments, process, framework or mandate ... to explore and analyse strategic approaches for long-term co-operative action to address climate change" was too much for the US.
When the draft was produced around 2am yesterday by the EU in collaboration with China and the G77 group of developing countries, the US chief negotiator, Harlan Watson, registered his objection, saying: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck."
He then walked out of the session, leaving everyone else to get on with it. His duck reference was to anything that suggested a negotiation process which might lead to multilateral commitments to cut the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for causing climate change.
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche quipped later that Mr Watson's phrase "might go down well in the Ozarks", but not here in Montreal.
"They [ the US delegation] have now put themselves in a position of absolute isolation," having declined to take part in drafting the text, he said.
But, he added, this was "not a bad thing in itself" because the EU and G77 were able to reach a substantial measure of agreement without US participation. "It may be painfully slow - paint dries faster - but we could have ended up here with a disaster, and we haven't."
Referring to the final text, Mr Roche said there was "a huge amount of moral persuasion behind it".
The fact that the rest of the world had agreed to it would also have an effect in the US by encouraging its "gas-guzzling" enterprises to become more energy efficient.
British environment secretary Margaret Beckett recalled that President George Bush had personally agreed at the G8 Gleneagles summit last July that the US would take part in the proceedings in Montreal. But this hadn't happened, even though everyone had tried to accommodate them.
Speaking for the EU, Ms Beckett said the US walk-out left the summit in a "mood of despair", especially as delegates had worked hard to find a formula of words and phrases that would cater for American "sensitivities" about committing themselves to future talks.
Jennifer Morgan, of the World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation, said the US had "shown its true colours" by refusing even to consider further dialogue on the issue.
However, she was confident that other ministers at the summit would "remain firm and move forward".
The Bush administration was further aggravated this week by the strong speech made in Montreal by Canadian prime minister Paul Martin and, in particular, his call to the US that the time had come to "listen to ... the global conscience" on climate change.
It is understood that US vice-president Dick Cheney sent a message to Mr Martin on Thursday complaining about his speech and subsequent remarks at a press conference. Mr Cheney is believed to be the "hard man" behind the current US stance on climate change.
Though the US, which is responsible for 24 per cent of global emissions, was "shirking its responsibility" to deal with climate change, Bill Hare of Greenpeace said Montreal created the momentum to take the Kyoto Protocol forward. "We have seen historic progress here."
Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the US had made a miscalculation in Montreal.
"Having lost the key battle to derail Kyoto, the behaviour of the US delegation here has stiffened rather than weakened the resolve of rest of the world to move ahead," he said.