Forty-six nations have backed a call to form a new environmental body to fight global warming and to protect the planet. The United States, however, is refusing to support the initiative. So are China and India. The United States is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. France proposed the formation of the new United Nations environmental body following the publication of last week’s major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Scientists warned that fossil fuel pollution would raise temperatures this century, worsen floods, produce more droughts and hurricanes, melt polar sea ice and damage the climate system for a thousand years to come.

French President Jacques Chirac: “So that we may all become citizens of the Earth, let us adopt at the United Nations a Universal Declaration of Environmental Rights and Responsibilities. It will be an expression of common environmental ethics, which we may apply both to our public and our private actions.”