India Ensures Heated Start to Climate Conference

A global conference on climate change got off to a bad start yesterday when the Indian government omitted all reference to the Kyoto protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the draft declaration to be signed by more than 180 countries, including Britain.

The draft includes no commitment to reduce pollution in the future, either.

The apparent concession to the US, which refuses to adopt the protocol, brought an angry response from the EU and environmental groups at the UN conference in New Delhi.

The British environment minister, Margaret Beckett, who is due to chair a ministerial round table on climate change later this week, told the Guardian she was "slightly surprised" that the protocol had been left out, but added: "I don't want to get involved in a discussion on the text.

Other officials were more scathing, saying the declaration drafted by the Indian environment minister, TR Baalu, was in its current form "unacceptable", "not forward-looking" and "worthless".

The US and Europe have been at odds over the protocol since President George Bush withdrew from it earlier this year, saying it was not in the interests of the US economy.

The draft fails to discuss what measures the developing world should take to reduce global warming after 2012, simply stressing the need for "adaptation" and sustainable development.

The US and Saudi Arabia have welcomed the draft, which is due to be signed on Friday.

India ratified the protocol two months ago, but its Hindu nationalist government regards the US as its pre-eminent ally and is reluctant to do anything that might offend it.

Last night an EU spokesman said the Washington-inspired declaration was "disappointing", adding: "We have been passionately trying to bring more members to ratify the Kyoto protocol, but with the draft making no mention [of it] we feel our efforts will be diluted."

COP8, the 8th committee of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change, is the most important environmental gathJackie Ashley: Public sector workers have lost patience. Blair must show he's on their side.ces. Both sides have to convince a sceptical electorate that paying higher taxes is worthwhile. If they don't, the political price will be high, with the government's domestic agenda collapsing into recrimination and chaos. New Labour will arrive at the next election having failed to deliver and the voters will, one way or another, exact their revenge.

To prevent that happening, the government has to start to sound like a completely committed Labour government, one on the same side as public sector workers, not determined to crush them. For this time, Labour iction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010, she said.

The four-day conference has been welcomed with jubilation by Delhi's five-star hotels, which have been largely empty as the crisis between India and Pakistan worsened.

The rains and floods in Europe, the destruction of homes in the Caribbean, and mudslides in India, Nepal and Bangladesh between January and September this year have cost an estimated £36bn, according to a report published yesterday.

There have been more than 500 major natural disasters already this year, killing thousands of people, making hundreds of thousands homeless and affecting millions.

"We have, once more, strong indications that global warming is increasing," Thomas Loster of the insurance group Munich Re said.