U.S. Reverses Bush’s Rejection of Environmental Pact

The United States signed a treaty Friday designed to protect the world’s disappearing plant and animal species, reversing the George Bush Administration’s rejection of the pact.

The United States was the only country that refused to sign the biodiversity treaty at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro last year, when Bush was president.

“We are here this morning to signal a new change in U.S. foreign policy,” declared Timothy Wirth, a State Department counselor.

President Clinton had announced during an Earth Day speech in April that he would reverse the Bush policy.

Declaring then that the “bounty of nature is not ours to waste,” Clinton also pledged to reduce U.S. emissions of gases that contribute to global warming to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. Bush also refused to sign that agreement at Rio.

U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said that although the United States has concerns about parts of the biodiversity treaty, “the course of wisdom is to join the convention and play a leadership role.”

Albright said the signing showed the Clinton Administration’s “determination to treat environmental threats as serious as other threats to our security.”

The Bush Administration had complained that the treaty could be interpreted as forcing U.S. companies to share research and technological developments.