BERLIN, Sept 1: A German conservative policymaker said on Thursday climate change had played a role in Hurricane Katrina and urged the US to join other nations in the Kyoto treaty, which envisages cutting the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

Gerda Hasselfeldt, a leading candidate to become environment minister if the conservative opposition wins the Sept. 18 election, was asked in an interview with n-tv television if climate change had contributed to the devastation wrought by the storm on the US Gulf Coast in which thousands may have died.

“That is the case,” she replied, adding that there should be better coordination at the global level to achieve a further reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

“The US must be more involved. But we will not achieve that through insults,” Hasselfeldt said.

The White House has shunned the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement adopted by more than 150 countries, which aims to reduce the emission of so-called greenhouse gases. US President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto and has said it would have “wrecked” the economy.

The United States is the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter.—Reuters