Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190663
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The conference produced little to indicate the Bush administration will abandon its go-slow, cautious policy and adopt the more aggressive posture held by many of the European countries.
President Bush, in closing the international conference Wednesday, declared his "commitment to action, to sound analysis and sound policies" in tackling the problem of man-made pollution that scientists say is causing a warming of the Earth.
"The climate change debate is not about `research versus action,' for we have never considered research a substitute for action," he told the delegates from 18 nations.
But neither Bush nor other senior administration officials suggested that the administration is prepared to embrace the aggressive response strategies discussed by some European delegates.
No one at the White House discussed possible timetables for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Allan Bromley, the president's science adviser and co-chairman of the conference, repeatedly emphasized the session was aimed at dealing with unresolved scientific issues and economics, not response or policy issues.
The president did not mention action plans when he welcomed the delegates on Tuesday, prompting criticism from the European delegations. Environmentalists contended Bush allowed the leadership mantle to fall into European hands on the global warming issue.
"Worldwide action is urgently needed even if all the complex scientific causal relationships of climate changes have not been firmly established," Klaus Topfer, the West German environment minister, told the delegates.
The Europeans argue enough already is known to launch prudent plans for cutting carbon dioxide, which comes largely from the burning of fossil fuels and accounts for half of the global warming problem.
The Dutch favor a commitment as soon as possible by the industrial countries to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000. The European Community may well make such a commitment without U.S. participation this summer.
West Germany informed the delegates it plans to draft a proposal for a 25 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions in Germany by the year 2005. The Canadians also said they plan to develop carbon dioxide reduction goals.
The Bush administration, however, has made no indication it will join soon in taking similar actions, suggesting instead that the global warming threat and the economic impact must still be better understood.
European delegates scoffed at those statements.
"A stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions is not a matter of economic constraints, but it is a matter of political will," Hans Alders, the Dutch environmental minister, told the delegates.
Within the Bush administration there appears to be no similar sense of urgency. Asked about a timetable, Energy Secretary James Watkins suggested in an interview that a plan for specific carbon dioxide controls might not be prudent until the middle of the decade.
by CNB