Brazilian president raps West's failure to cut greenhouse gas

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized Friday industrialized countries for turning a blind eye to global warming with insufficient efforts to cut the emission of greenhouse gases.

The United States and other developed countries, which are responsible for up to 75 percent of the global emission of greenhouse gases, had not showed the courage to face industrial pollution, Lula was quoted as saying by the official Brazil news agency at an opening ceremony of a sewage processing center in Sao Paulo state.

Lula said thanks to Brazil's efforts, destructive activities in the Amazon forests had dropped by 52 percent over the past two years, which was instrumental in the fight against global warming.

Despite that there is still an uphill task for Brazil to curb logging, and rich countries should also be accountable for emissions and reduce them, he said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report on Friday, warning that greenhouse gas emissions related to human activities will cause serious climatic changes such as global warming of up to 6.4 percent and a 59-cm rise in sea levels before 2100.

(Published by Inside CR, February 5, 2007)