As ice caps shrink around them, Inuit activists are making an international case out of Washington's alleged indifference to global warming. But the administration of US President George W. Bush is standing by its refusal to negotiate long-term limits on "greenhouse gases."
A two-week UN climate conference, attended by more than 180 nations, entered its final two days yesterday with little prospect for consensus on a key item -- mandatory cutbacks beyond 2012 in carbon dioxide and other emissions whose buildup in the atmosphere is expected to disrupt the global climate.
The climate is already changing in the Arctic, where an international study last year found average winter temperatures have increased as much as 5 degrees Celsius over 50 years. Permafrost is thawing, and the extent of Arctic Sea ice is shrinking, imperiling polar bears and other animals.
The warming threatens "the destruction of the hunting and food-gathering culture of the Inuit in this century," said Paul Crowley of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, representing 155,000 Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Russia and the US, where they are known as Eskimos.
On Wednesday, the Inuit group submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an investigative arm of the Organization of American States in Washington, "seeking relief from violations resulting from global warming caused by acts and omissions of the United States" -- the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The northern natives -- 63 petitioners are named from all Inuit regions -- seek a declaration that their human rights are being violated, putting political pressure on the US government to reduce emissions.
The Montreal meeting, attracting almost 10,000 delegates, environmentalists and others, is the first annual UN climate conference since the Kyoto Protocol took effect last February, requiring 35 industrialized countries to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and five other "greenhouse" gases.
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