Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report

[Diane Monaco <dmonaco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Published on Monday, June 3, 2002 in the New York Times
Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report
by Andrew C. Revkin

In a stark shift for the Bush administration, the United States has sent a
climate report to
the United Nations detailing specific and far-reaching effects that it says
global warming
will inflict on the American environment.

In the report, the administration for the first time mostly blames
human actions for recent global warming. It says the main
culprit is the burning of fossil fuels that send heat-trapping
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But while the report says the United States will be substantially
changed in the next few decades  "very likely" seeing the
disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves
and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows
and coastal marshes, for example  it does not propose any
major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases.

It recommends adapting to inevitable changes. It does not
recommend making rapid reductions in greenhouse gases to
limit warming, the approach favored by many environmental
groups and countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, a
climate treaty written in the Clinton administration that was
rejected by Mr. Bush.

The new document, "U.S. Climate Action Report 2002,"
strongly concludes that no matter what is done to cut
emissions in the future, nothing can be done about the
environmental consequences of several decades' worth of
carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases already in the
atmosphere.

Its emphasis on adapting to the inevitable fits in neatly with the climate
plan Mr. Bush
announced in February. He called for voluntary measures that would allow
gas emissions
to continue to rise, with the goal of slowing the rate of growth.

Yet the new report's predictions present a sharp contrast to previous
statements on
climate change by the administration, which has always spoken in
generalities and
emphasized the need for much more research to resolve scientific questions.

The report, in fact, puts a substantial distance between the administration
and companies
that produce or, like automakers, depend on fossil fuels. Many companies
and trade
groups have continued to run publicity and lobbying campaigns questioning
the validity of
the science pointing to damaging results of global warming.

The distancing could be an effort to rebuild Mr. Bush's environmental
credentials after a
bruising stretch of defeats on stances that favor energy production over
conservation,
notably the failure to win a Senate vote opening the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to
exploratory oil drilling.

But the report has alienated environmentalists, too. Late last week, after
it was posted on
the Web site of the Environmental Protection Agency, private environmental
groups
pounced on it, saying it pointed to a jarring disconnect between the
administration's
findings on the climate problem and its proposed solutions.

"The Bush administration now admits that global warming will change
America's most
unique wild places and wildlife forever," said Mark Van Putten, the
president of the
National Wildlife Federation, a private environmental group. "How can it
acknowledge
global warming is a disaster in the making and then refuse to help solve
the problem,
especially when solutions are so clear?"

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said, "It is important to move
forward on the
president's strategies for addressing the challenge of climate change, and
that's what
we're continuing to do."

Many companies and trade groups had sought last year to tone down parts of
the report,
the third prepared by the United States under the requirements of a 1992
climate treaty
but the first under President Bush.

For the most part, the document does not reflect industry's wishes, which
were conveyed
in letters during a period of public comment on a draft last year.

The report emphasizes that global warming carries potential benefits for
the nation,
including increased agricultural and forest growth from longer growing
seasons, and from
more rainfall and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.

But it says environmental havoc is coming as well. "Some of the goods and
services lost
through the disappearance or fragmentation of natural ecosystems are likely
to be costly
or impossible to replace," the report says.

The report also warns of the substantial disruption of snow-fed water
supplies, the loss of
coastal and mountain ecosystems and more frequent heat waves. "A few
ecosystems,
such as alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some barrier islands, are
likely to
disappear entirely in some areas," it says. "Other ecosystems, such as
Southeastern
forests, are likely to experience major species shifts or break up into a
mosaic of
grasslands, woodlands and forests."

Despite arguments by oil industry groups that the evidence is not yet
clear, the report
unambiguously states that humans are the likely cause of most of the recent
warming.
Phrases were adopted wholesale from a National Academy of Sciences climate
study,
which was requested last spring by the White House and concluded that the
warming was
a serious problem.

A government official familiar with the new report said that it had been
under review at the
White House from January until mid-April, but that few substantive changes
were made.

Without a news release or announcement, the new report was shipped last
week to the
United Nations offices that administer the treaty and posted on the Web
(www.epa
.gov/globalwarming/publications /car/).

A senior administration official involved in climate policy played down the
significance of
the report, explaining that policies on emissions or international treaties
would not change
as a result.

Global warming has become a significant, if second-tier, political issue
recently,
particularly since James M. Jeffords, the Vermont independent, became
chairman of the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last year. Mr. Jeffords has
criticized
the president's policy.

The new report is the latest in a series on greenhouse gases, climate
research, energy
policies and related matters that are required of signatories to the United
Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed by Mr. Bush's
father and
ratified by the Senate.

The convention lacks binding obligations to reduce gas emissions like those
in the Kyoto
Protocol.

Mr. Bush and administration officials had previously been careful to avoid
specifics and
couch their views on coming climate shifts with substantial caveats. The
president and his
aides often described climate change as a "serious issue," but rarely as a
serious
problem.

The report contains some caveats of its own, but states that the warming
trend has been
under way for several decades and is likely to continue.

"Because of the momentum in the climate system and natural climate
variability, adapting
to a changing climate is inevitable," the report says. "The question is
whether we adapt
poorly or well."

Several industry groups said the qualifications in parts of the report were
welcome, but
added that the overall message was still more dire than the facts justified
and would
confuse policy makers.

Dr. Russell O. Jones, a senior economist for the American Petroleum
Institute who wrote
a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency a year ago seeking to purge
projections of
specific environmental impacts from the report, said it was "frustrating"
to see that they
remained.

"Adding the caveats is useful, but the results are still as meaningless,"
Dr. Jones said.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company