Report on global warming due US said to oppose emission curbs By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post | November 5, 2004 WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has been working for months to keep an upcoming eight-nation report from endorsing broad policies aimed at curbing global warming, according to domestic and foreign participants, despite the group's conclusion that Arctic latitudes are facing historic increases in temperature, glacial melting, and abrupt weather changes. State Department representatives have argued that the group, which has spent four years examining Arctic climate fluctuations, lacks the evidence to prepare detailed policy proposals. But several participants in the negotiations, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of derailing the Nov. 24 report, said officials from the eight nations and six indigenous tribes involved in the effort had ample science on which to draft policy. The recommendations are based on a study, which was leaked last week, that concludes the Arctic is warming much faster than other areas of the world and that much of this change is linked to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- produced by a council of nations with Arctic territory that includes the United States, Canada, Russia, and several Nordic countries -- reflects the work of about 300 scientists. Several individuals close to the negotiations said the Bush administration, which opposes mandatory cuts in carbon emissions on the grounds that they will cost US jobs, had repeatedly resisted even mild language that would endorse the report's scientific findings. An early draft of the policy statement is set to be issued two weeks after the 144-page scientific overview is released Monday. The draft included a paragraph saying that to achieve the goals set under a 1992 international treaty known as the Rio Accord, the ''Arctic Council urges the member states to individually and when appropriate, jointly, adopt climate change strategies across relevant sectors. These strategies should aim at the reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases." The administration has pushed to drop that section. As one senior State Department official who asked not to be identified put it, ''We're bound by the administration's position. We're not going to make global climate policy at the Arctic Council." Samantha Smith, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Arctic Program, said the council's scientific conclusions, which said temperature increases in parts of the Arctic increased tenfold compared with the last century's worldwide average rise of 1 degree Fahrenheit, justified immediate action. ''This is the first full-scale assessment of climate change in the Arctic, and it shows dramatic changes in the region, with worse to come if we don't cut emissions," said Smith. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Bush stands firm against Kyoto pact By John Heilprin, Associated Press | November 7, 2004 WASHINGTON -- President Bush is holding fast to his rejection of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming, despite a new report from 300 scientists in the United States and seven other nations that indicates Arctic temperatures are rising. This week, a four-year study of the Arctic will document that the region is warming rapidly, affecting global climates. Scientists project that industrial gases such as carbon dioxide will make the Arctic warmer still, which would raise the level of the seas and make the earth hotter. The world's atmosphere includes about 380 parts per million of carbon dioxide, compared with 280 parts per million in 1800, according to scientists. President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed the Kyoto international climate treaty last week, which puts it into effect early next year without US participation. The treaty requires industrial nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels. ''President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Headed into his second term, Bush continues to believe he ''made the right leadership choice" by repudiating the UN-sponsored pact negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, Connaughton said. Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, negotiated the treaty for the United States and had a major role in its final form. ''Kyoto was a bad treaty for the United States," said Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Leavitt added in an interview Friday that climate change is not an issue the administration dismisses. ''I know that it is of importance to the president that we continue to make progress," he said. Bush's policy has amounted to spending a few billion dollars each year on research. White House officials contend the drastic cuts in pollution that the treaty would have imposed on the United States would have cost nearly $400 billion and almost 5 million jobs. Many would have shifted to other countries that were not obligated to reduce pollution levels, the Bush administration says. From 1990 to 2002, US greenhouse gases increased 13.1 percent while Russian greenhouse gases decreased 38.5 percent, partly because of shrinkage in its industrial base after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the latest UN figures. Global warming is a recurring theme that punctuated the start of Bush's terms in office. In March 2001 Bush broke his campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions and withdrew the United States from the Kyoto treaty, which seeks to slow global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Gore signed the treaty in 1997, but it was not ratified by the Republican-controlled Senate. Bush said the treaty should have included developing countries such as China and India, which are major polluters. Achieving the treaty's target will be difficult without participation by the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized nations' carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. Russia accounted for 17 percent. Critics say Bush's opposition is ironic because the treaty was modeled after the market-based US program for cutting acid rain created in 1990 by Bush's father and often pointed to by the current administration as a success story. ''Indeed, it would be very, very surprising if this instrument were not used by the people who invented it," Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the Kenya-based UN Environment Program, said in an interview. Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, a nonprofit group based in New York, said the United States will be left isolated on the biggest environmental challenge of the century. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is releasing a report this week that says there is strong evidence that climate change has begun to affect ecosystems and wildlife in the United States and around the world. Some animal species are moving from one habitat to another to adapt to warmer temperatures, according to the Pew report, and future warming probably will exceed the ability of many species to migrate or adjust.