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These leaf-shaped ecological messages posted to George Bush during the
summit did little to move the President. Bush’s single new commitment to
the summit was an offer to hold a con-erence of industrialised nations next
January to discuss national plans for combating the greenhouse effect. Such
plans are called for by the Climate Convention, which he had just signed.

The offer was swiftly undermined by Jacques Delors, president of the
European Commission, another reluctant participant in the summit. Such a
meeting should not be held until next summer, he said. ‘A year is enough
³Ù¾±³¾±ð.’

Then he criticised Bush for bypassing the UN negotiating machinery set
up to prepare the convention and put it into effect. ‘If we set up these
organisations, we can’t keep denying them,’ said Delors.

But Delors in turn came under attack for operating a dual-track European
environment policy. How, he was asked by journalists, did he reconcile commitment
to reducing carbon dioxide emissions with plans to build 12 000 kilometres
of roads as part of a new Trans-European road network?

‘We are not absolutist about roads,’ he said. The new roads would benefit
poorer regions of the Community and provide links with Eastern Europe.