I call urgently on all states, and first of all the industrialised countries, to fully implement the Kyoto Protocol on climate change without delay

President Chirac

European Union Environment Commissioner Margaret Wallstrom says she will be going to Washington for emergency talks next week.

Before she leaves, EU ministers will meet in Sweden this weekend and debate ways of keeping Washington on board with the treaty, as well as alternative scenarios.

The EU has also announced that a diplomatic mission is to visit Russia, China, Japan and Iran to gauge support for the 1997 pact, which aims to restrict emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).

Global concerns

The US Government's decision not to implement the Kyoto Protocol has been criticised around the world.

Howard: US position "understandable"

China, Japan, France, Germany and Britain are among those who have expressed their concern.

Mr Chirac told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva that the right to a protected environment at a time of global warming had to be ensured.

"At a time of global warming and of a disturbing and unacceptable challenge to the Kyoto Protocol... of spreading deserts and an impending freshwater crisis of major proportions, how can we affirm the right to a protected and preserved environment, the right of future generations?

"It is in this spirit that I call urgently on all states, and first of all the industrialised countries, to fully implement the Kyoto Protocol on climate change without delay," said President Chirac.

The US announcement... citing the lack of obligations of developing countries, violates the principled rules of the Kyoto Protocol and is irresponsible

Chinese Foreign Ministry

The global climate protocol - yet to be ratified by many European countries - commits 38 industrialised nations to cut their emissions of the main gases produced by human activities.

Developing nations are included in the treaty, but exempt from emission quotas on economic grounds.

That, says the Bush administration, goes against America's economic interests.

'Warming waffle'

The Australian Prime Minister was one of the few to show some sympathy for the US position.

"What President Bush is concerned about, and it is an understandable concern, is you can't really have a comprehensive agreement unless you get the developing countries inside the tent."

The US produces 25% of the world's CO2 emissions

China, one of the countries that is not bound by the emission quotas, condemned the US position as "irresponsible".

But the apparent collapse of the protocol has been welcomed by groups who question the science that underpins the idea of global warming. Many researchers believe the impact of human emissions on the Earth's climate has been overstated.

One prominent British global warming sceptic derided European governments for their "warming waffle".

Professor Philip Stott, of the University of London, said: "In Europe, global warming has become a necessary myth, nearly a self-defining religion. Hence the hysteria at Mr Bush's decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

"In reality, global warming has little to do with complex climate change. The science is deeply flawed; the attitude to growth in the developing world is neo-colonial; and the protocol simply won't work.

"The idea that we can control chaotic climate, which is governed by a billion factors, through fiddling about with a couple of politically selected gases is just carbon claptrap."