Arctic natives seek global warming ruling
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-08 20:22

But a leading U.S. expert on the Kyoto process was pessimistic.

"I'm not hopeful for any movement by the United States," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. What's more realistic, he said, is a process by which China, India, Brazil and other developing powers might be brought in, "without the U.S. at the table," to make concessions on energy emissions.

A broad scientific consensus agrees that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, byproduct of automobile engines, power plants and other fossil fuel-burning industries, has contributed significantly to the past century's global temperature rise of 1 degree.

In October, NASA climatologists projected from thousands of temperature readings that 2005 would end as the warmest year globally since records were first kept in the mid-19th century.