Several groups staged protests in the conference hall Mr Pronk said he had asked some of the protestors to stay for a discussion, but they had replied that the conference was a sham, and had then left. The daily press briefing by the US delegation was interrupted when a protestor rammed a cream cake into the face of the chief US negotiator, Frank Loy. He cut the briefing short, but later released a statement. We think this whole process has become a farce. It's all about companies making a profit, not about dealing with the issues.
Dialogue is impossible.
For all its show of magnanimity, the US is still seen here by many other delegations, and by most environmental campaign groups, as so wedded to the protection of its own narrow short-term interests that the chasm surrounding it is now almost unbridgeable. It is at loggerheads with the European Union over how to achieve the cuts in greenhouse gases to which industrialised countries are committed under the Kyoto Protocol. The EU says at least half of all cuts should be made domestically. But the US and its allies are arguing that they should be allowed to make unlimited use of the protocol's provisions for counting reductions in other countries' emissions towards their own targets. This, the EU says, means the US would not in fact have to cut its own emissions at all.