Envoy Says U.S.
Greenhouse Gas Growth Slowing
October 06, 2005 — By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The chief U.S.
negotiator on global warming acknowledged Wednesday the nation's glacial
pace in reducing greenhouse gases and said even that might not continue
in the future.
"One can argue whether it's slowing down fast enough, but it is slowing
down," Harlan Watson, a State Department special envoy, told the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee. "We're doing better than
business as usual. That's the president's goal."
Business as usual allows the United States to release into the air each
year about 6.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases
scientists blame for heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse -- a
quarter of the world's total emissions.
Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, likened the
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to a car that should first slow down,
stop, then reverse course.
"When is the year we're going to be able to say, 'The car is stopped?'
Carper asked Watson.
Watson answered that the administration was ahead of its goal for
slowing the growth rate in emissions, "but I can't guarantee it's going
to continue."
Emissions are growing at the rate of about 1.5 percent a year, despite
the administration's voluntary climate change policies.
By itself, that growth rate is expected to drop to about 1.3 percent by
2012 as industries adopt newer and cleaner technology. President Bush
aims to decrease the growth rate to about 1.2 percent.
That would result in 1.8 million tons fewer such gases over the next
seven years, according to administration figures.
By signing on to the United Nations-brokered Kyoto Protocol,
industrialized nations commit themselves to cutting their collective
emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to 5.2
percent below 1990 levels.
Only a few nations such as Britain and Sweden are on track. John Bruton,
the European Union's ambassador to the United States, told the Senate
committee in a letter Wednesday that the 15 EU nations had collectively
cut their emissions to 2.9 percent below 1990 levels.
But he said the EU remains "right on track" to meet its goal of an 8
percent reduction, because it will use the global carbon market. Such
trading lets those who make more cuts than required sell unused
allowances to others.
Shortly after taking office, President Bush rejected the Kyoto accord
that was negotiated by his Democratic opponent in the 2000 election,
former Vice President Al Gore.
The accord emphasizes the need to develop technologies that cut
emissions and capture carbon but Bush said it would cost the U.S.
economy $400 billion and almost 5 million jobs while excluding China and
India from its requirements.
Watson said he expected China and India to keep rejecting the notion of
making cuts for many years.
The Senate panel's chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., rejected not
only the treaty itself but also the Bush administration's acknowledgment
that pollution is contributing to global warming.
"Even if humans were causing global warming -- and we are not -- but
even if we were, Kyoto would do nothing to avert it," Inhofe said.
Source: Associated Press |