Officially Bush has withdrawn US support for Kyoto for pure economic reasons. His argument runs that striving to hit the US target of a seven per cent reduction on 1990 emissions by 2010 would stifle the US economy at a time when certain developing countries are emerging as weightier trading partners. Threatened by this competition, Bush does not see why these countries should not be included in making environmental commitments. He also objects to-specific concepts in the Protocol, namely to restricting the role played by carbon sinks and to capping the use of flexibility mechanisms as a way of meeting climate change targets.
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