more climate change mischief

[michael perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is amazing that the Europeans buckle under.  It is amazing that the
Bushies can get away with pushing unpopular positions & still keep
winning.

*washingtonpost.com* <http://www.washingtonpost.com/>*U.S. Pressure
Weakens G-8 Climate Plan*
Global-Warming Science Assailed

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005; A01

Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded
in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight
major industrialized nations to curb climate change.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete
language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the
globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set
stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects,
according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met
this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated
to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming
marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord
with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary.
Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on
heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to
modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a
more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.

Last week, the New York Times reported that a senior White House
official had altered government documents to emphasize the uncertainties
surrounding the science on global warming. That official, White House
Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Phillip Cooney, left the
administration last Friday to take a public relations job with oil giant
Exxon Mobil, a leading opponent of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas
emissions.

The wording of the international document, titled "Climate Change, Clean
Energy and Sustainable Development," will help determine what, if any,
action the G-8 countries will take as a group to combat global warming.
Every member nation except the United States has pledged to bring its
greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the
Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair -- who currently heads the G-8 -- is trying to coax the United
States into adopting stricter climate controls.

In preparation for the summit, negotiators are trying to work out the
wording of statements on climate change and other issues that leaders of
all eight nations are willing to endorse. The language is not final, but
the documents show that a number of deletions have been made at U.S.
insistence.

Although the new statement by G-8 leaders may not dramatically alter the
other nations' policies on global warming, what it says could mark a
shift for the United States. (The other G-8 members are Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.) U.S. officials pressed negotiators to
drop sections of the report that highlight some problems tied to global
warming, warn of more frequent droughts and floods, and commit a
specific dollar amount to promoting carbon sequestration in developing
countries.

One deleted section, for example, initially cited "increasingly
compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and
atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea
levels, and changes to ecosystems." It added: "Inertia in the climate
system means that further warming is inevitable. Unless urgent action is
taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic
development, human health and the natural environment, and of
irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans."

Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, "Climate
change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect
every part of the globe."

James L. Connaughton, who heads the Council on Environmental Quality,
said the United States was in "extremely constructive discussions on
preparing leadership text for the G-8 meeting" that would outline the
world's climate change problem in a "succinct and strong" manner.

"It's very important to view [the deletions] in context," Connaughton
said in an interview. "The overall context is one of strong consensus
about a shared commitment to practical action, as well as defined
management strategies."

But environmentalists and Democrats criticized the administration for
trying to water down the international coalition's initiative.

"The administration is pursuing a dangerous 'ostrich' policy: put your
head in the sand and pretend nothing's happening," Sen. John F. Kerry
(D-Mass.) said in an interview.

Some advocates are urging the seven other G-8 members to adopt their own
global warming plan rather than accept a milder statement that they say
would provide the Bush administration with political cover.

"The U.S. will just not budge," said Hans J.H. Verolme, director of the
World Wildlife Fund's U.S. climate change program. "We'd rather not have
a deal than have a deal that lets George Bush off the hook."

Bush's top science adviser, John Marburger, said he is "impatient and
frustrated" with such charges, because the administration is seeking to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions through technological advances and other
voluntary measures.

"From the beginning, this administration has acknowledged the Earth is
getting warmer and we're going to have to take responsibility for our
emissions," Marburger said. Critics claim the White House believes
"climate change is not happening, which is not true."

Several officials involved in the negotiations said none of the
document's wording is fixed, and it could change before the leaders
adopt a final version for the summit. Connaughton emphasized that the
administration's suggested changes address the threat of rising
temperatures and offer several proposals to mitigate climate change as
well as air pollution.

"We are looking for economy of expression in a leadership text," he said.

The controversy follows recent charges by several climate specialists
that Bush appointees are exerting undue political influence on federal
global warming documents.

Last week, Rick S. Piltz, a policy expert and former Democratic
congressional aide who worked until March in the federal office
coordinating climate change, released documents showing that Cooney, the
White House official, had edited the office's documents to highlight
higher temperature's benefits and uncertainties surrounding global
warming. Before joining the administration, Cooney was an oil lobbyist.

In December, the administration issued new guidelines calling for
federal officials to have final sign-off on a series of climate change
assessment. Several experts objected that the requirement undermines
their independence, and senior scientist Eric Sundquist of the U.S.
Geological Survey resigned as lead author on one report in protest.

In a May 12 letter from his personal e-mail account, Sundquist said the
new rules may make it difficult "to communicate the best independent
scientific judgment to decision makers."

NOAA Deputy Administrator James R. Mahoney, who is overseeing the
government's 21 periodic climate assessments, said these concerns were
unfounded because the government will publish the full reports before
political appointees have a chance to alter them.

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901