SUNS  4327 Thursday 19 November 1998

Washington, Nov. 17 (IPS/Danielle Knight) -- U.S. environmental groups, eager to move forward after the climate treaty negotiations in Buenos Aires, are urging President Bill Clinton to adopt a
national plan to reduce 'greenhouse gas' emissions blamed for global warming.

Environmetalists say that such a plan of action is needed if future negotiations on the climate treaty are to get anywhere. The proposal would include reducing government subsidies for fossil fuel, improve fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, and creating incentives for shifting to renewable energy use.

"What we must have from the Clinton administration is a real campaign against the ostriches in congress who want to deny that climate change is happening," says Phil E. Clapp, president of the
Washington-based National Environmental Trust.

While White House blames congress for inaction, Clapp says the U.S. administration has done little to reduce the gases, mainly resulting from the burning of oil, coal and gas, which most scientists say are responsible for heating Earth's surface.

"While the world's largest polluter of greenhouse gases has fallen far short of commitments made six years ago in Rio to reduce emissions, it expects developing nations - many which are cash strapped from the international financial crisis - to commit to binding greenhouse gas emission limits," he says.

Under the Framework Convention on Climate Change signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, industrial countries made non-binding commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to at least 1990 levels by the year 2000. However, nearly all the signatories - including the United States - are falling far short of those targets.

Seeking to put some teeth into commitments on reducing emissions, industrialised nations hammered out the Kyoto Protocol in Japan last year. This legally binding agreement mandates cuts in the emissions of six greenhouse gases by an average of six percent from 1990 levels, and to complete the reductions between 2008 and 2012.

At the latest round of climate change treaty negotiations held last week in Argentina, US congressional representatives reasserted their refusal to ratify the Kyoto agreement on climate change unless developing countries also made binding commitments to reduce emissions.

"Without a more vigorous commitment to domestic action, US demands for more action by developing countries are like a chain-smoking parent telling his children that smoking is bad for them," says John Adams, president of the Natural Resources Defence Council. Despite more than 50 federal programmes aimed at cutting global warming pollution - which Stuart Eizenstat, the chief climate treaty negotiator, considers "tremendous progress," -- US emissions continued to grow. According to Clapp, emissions accelerating to two percent growth per year during the first four years of the Clinton administration.

Katherine Silverthorne, a staff attorney with the Washington-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group, says these programmes do not produce results because they neither increase fuel efficiency
standards for automobiles nor taken significant steps to limit greenhouse gases from power plants.

"The administration's restructuring plan for the utility industries does not put a cap on carbon emissions and requires only that 5.5% of US electricity comes from renewable energy sources," she says.

In comparison, the EU requires that 12% of its electricity comes from renewable sources of energy, such as solar or wind power.

"The administration and Congress also need to develop fuel efficiency standards for automobiles so they reflect current technologies," Silverthorne says. "While auto industry lobbyists on capital hill say they absolutely can't make increases in fuel efficiency, companies like Toyota are going to be marketing cars that get 70 miles per gallon starting in the year 2000. Ford already has a prototype car that gets 63 miles per gallon and all U.S. auto-makers say they will unveil 80 miles per gallon
prototypes by the year 2000."

Clinton's proposals for reducing emissions also do not reduce subsidies to the fossil fuel industry nor has it created strong incentives for companies to reduce their own emissions, she adds.

Despite the government's failure to reduce emissions, many environmental groups say they remain optimistic as they witness the increasing willingness of industries to take voluntary early action
on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"The growing fissures within the business community were on full display in Buenos Aires," says Alden Meyer, director of government relations at the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists. "Momentum is shifting from a 'just say no' caucus to the 'just do it' business community."

While there is still a group of determined fossil fuel industries, known as the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), that opposes taking action on stabilising emissions, many companies are beginning to take voluntary steps to reduce emissions, says Eileen Claussen, executive director of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.

Organisations calling for such early action include such companies as Enron Corporation and Boeing while British Petroleum, Monsanto, and General Motors also have teamed up with World Resources Institute to press for similar action on emission reductions.

Thomas Casten, chairman and CEO of the Trigen Energy Corporation, recently published a book describing how climate has been a "huge business opportunity" that has helped to increase his company's energy efficiency. Such savings have led to increased revenues for Trigen from one million dollars in 1987 to 241 million in 1997, says Casten.

"What we saw in Buenos Aires is that increasingly the global business community is not questioning whether steps should be taken to reduce emissions but how these steps should be taken," adds
Marvin.

"From that perspective it would be difficult to look at Buenos Aires as anything other than a success, even though we would have liked to have seen more clarity on the issues and problems of
reducing emissions."