AMERICA - supported by Britain - is putting the pressure on developing countries to sign up to cutting their emissions of fossil fuel gases early next century and will refuse to ratify the Kyoto summit's protocol on reducing global warming unless they do.
But what example is the superpower itself setting - when, as the world's biggest polluter, it baulks at radically reducing its own emissions and is clinging to loopholes that could make any deal at Kyoto worthless?
America's government, of course, is pulled and shoved by powerful industrial interest groups and their stooges in Congress, but if these remain an obstacle to a cast-iron deal in Kyoto on emissions targets and to Third World countries coming aboard, the rest of the world will have to hit back.
The target must be their industries' profits - money, after all, is at the root of this corrupt US foot-dragging.
The rest of the world should threaten a "pollution" tariff on imports from America to force them to clean up faster.
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