US urges 'global discussion' on UN climate report

Washington, Feb 3: The Bush administration today played down the US contribution to world climate change and called for a ''global discussion'' after a UN report blamed humans for much of the warming over the past 50 years.

''We are a small contributor when you look at the rest of the world,'' US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said of greenhouse gas emissions. ''It's really got to be a global discussion.'' The United States is responsible for one-quarter of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide and uses one-quarter of the world's crude oil.

A unilateral US program to cut emissions might hurt the economy and send business overseas, Bodman said.

In measured tones that accepted the reality of global climate change but stopped short of urging specific limits on the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to it, Bodman hailed the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in Paris.

''We're very pleased with it. We're embracing it. We agree with it,'' Bodman told a news conference. ''Human activity is contributing to changes in our Earth's climate and that issue is no longer up for debate.'' He reiterated the administration's opposition to mandatory caps on the emission of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas produced naturally and by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles, among other sources.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Fratto called the report valuable and significant and said the United States was an important participant its framing.

A White House statement released in Paris quoted the head of the US delegation, Sharon Hays, as saying the report ''will serve as a valuable source of information for policymakers.'' 'WAKE-UP CALL' FOR CONGRESS Among members of Congress, Rep. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said, ''This report must serve as a wake-up call to those policymakers who have ignored this issue. We must take action now.'' Rep. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and global warming skeptic who headed the environment committee before Democrats gained the congressional majority last year, assailed the report.

''This is a political document, not a scientific report, and it is a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain,'' Inhofe said in a statement.

Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and member of a committee that deals with energy, commerce and natural resources, took issue with the energy secretary's remarks by making a connection with Friday's Groundhog Day celebration.

''It sounds like the Bush administration, having seen the very real shadow of scientific evidence of global warming, has chosen to go back into its hole of denial by saying that it will not support measures to reduce global warming and its disastrous affects on our economy and environment,'' Markey said in a statement.

President George W. Bush's stance on global warming has evolved over his presidency, from open skepticism to acceptance that human activities accelerate change. He briefly mentioned the issue in last week's State of the Union address, saying solutions to the problem lie in technological advances and the use of renewable fuels like ethanol.

This is at odds with environmentalists who have urged mandatory limits on the carbon emissions. Last month, a panel of top corporate leaders, including those from electric companies, urged this same kind of federal regulation.

John Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the report's significance lies in the solidity of its science and the unequivocal link it makes between the global warming and its human cause.

''It is a much more powerful report than the last version (from 2001) ... There really has been a torrent of new scientific evidence over the last five or six years, evidence that bears on the magnitude and the human origins and the growing impacts of the climate changes that are already under way,'' Holdren said in a telephone interview.

Reuters

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