ET

US snub for Prescott on global warming By Toby Harnden in Washington

JOHN PRESCOTT, who pledged last week to "argue with the Americans" about global warming, arrived in Washington unnoticed yesterday and did not meet a single official to discuss environmental issues.

The thinness of the Deputy Prime Minister's programme reflected the depth of the transatlantic rift over President Bush's abandonment of the Kyoto treaty on climate change. For the time being, high level contacts between London and Washington on environmental issues appear to have been suspended.

A European Union "emergency" delegation sent to discuss Kyoto this month received a cool welcome. Sources said that neither Mr Prescott nor the British Embassy requested any meetings with Bush administration officials.

In the event, Mr Prescott did not meet any Republicans in Washington, despite the party's control of the White House and Congress. Before leaving Britain for a two-day visit to Washington and New York, Mr Prescott and other Cabinet members had privately urged Tony Blair to take a tougher line with the Bush administration.

Mr Prescott said on the eve of his visit: "We must argue with the Americans and get them to agree that we have to have a global solution and America is an important part of that solution. So I will be over there arguing the case again."

But Mr Prescott's pronouncements on global warming were limited to the margins of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in New York, which began a two-week conference yesterday. Climate change was not part of the official agenda.

However, Mr Prescott was due to attend an EU ministerial meeting on the subject and there were likely to be informal discussions about Kyoto. He could have expected to call on Vice President Dick Cheney or even Mr Bush.

When Mr Prescott visited Washington last year, he called on the then vice president, Al Gore, at his residence next door to the British Embassy. A spokesman for Mr Cheney said the vice president was in Washington yesterday and had no formal engagements but would not be meeting Mr Prescott.

The Deputy Prime Minister's calls in Washington were limited to Norman Mineta, the Transport Secretary and the only Democrat in Mr Bush's cabinet, Jane Garvey, a Clinton appointee who heads the Federal Aviation Authority, and Congressman James Oberstar, Democratic head of the House Transportation Committee.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001