Letter: Now build on Kyoto

Sir: For the world to agree a single accord on anything as nebulous as climate is remarkable. Unfortunately the result is a late-20th-century affirmation that colonialism rules.

With the plan for trading in emissions permits, the United States has badgered the rest of the world into accepting a new commodity for marketing, a new way for them to extend financial hegemony over economies struggling to emerge.

Most third world countries have difficulty developing their economies for the benefit of their own populations because they are struggling to pay off debts they have been seduced into by the developed nations. Now a new form of selling their seed corn - their ability to develop industry - has been invented which will ensure that they will only continue to be able to develop at the rate the US allows, since the US will decide whether or not to dangle the carrot of more foreign exchange in return for their greenhouse gases.

Which now is the evil empire?

DAVID CHOAT

Shepperton, Middlesex