date: Mon, 28 May 2001 15:55:14 -0500
from: "Chad Carpenter" <ccarpenter@iisd.ca>
subject: Climate News - 28 May 2001
to: "Climate Change Info Mailing List" <climate-l@lists.iisd.ca>

1)	US SENATE-SHIFT MAY DERAIL ENERGY PROPOSALS (Washington Post) 
2)	JAPAN, EU DISCUSS TIES (Japan Times)
3)	US TO PRESENT EU WITH KYOTO ALTERNATIVE (Daily Yomiuri) 
4)	EU-PROTOCOL DEPENDENT ON JAPAN AND OTHER US ALLIES (Japan Times)
5)	EU, US TALK ON ENVIRONMENT BUT STAY DEADLOCKED (NY Times) 
6)	ANNAN DERIDES US FOR REJECTING ACCORD (NY Times, CNN, BBC) 

7)	US-EXCESSIVE REGULATION BLAMED FOR ENERGY WOES (NY Times) 
8)	ANGER OVER BUSH ENERGY PLAN (CNN, The Age, IHT)
9)	PACIFIC STORM OVER US ENERGY PLANS (CNN) 
10)	U.N. SAYS US ENERGY POLICY FUELS GLOBAL WARMING (Reuters) 
11)	S AFRICA LAMENTS US WITHDRAWAL FROM PROTOCOL (Times of India) 
12)	INTERFAITH CALL FOR CONSERVATION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE (ENN)

13)	JAPAN FIRMS TO JOINTLY BROKER EMISSION RIGHTS (Nihon Keizai) 
14)	US UTILITIES FORM ALLIANCE TO CURB CARBON EMISSIONS (Reuters) 
15)	GLOBAL ENERGY FIRMS CLAIM WARMING MILESTONE (ENS) 
16)	ENERGY EXPERTS SAY EU MAY NOT MEET KYOTO TARGET (Reuters) 
17)	GREEN POWER TAKES TO THE STAIRS (Financial Times) 
18)	NORD POOL MAY LAUNCH GREEN CERTIFICATES BY AUTUMN (Reuters) 

19)	EUROPEAN ENERGY: A CLEAN AGENDA (CNN) 
20)	CANADA'S FUEL-CELL REVOLUTION (Ottawa Citizen) 
21)	DUTCH WIND PROJECT TO HELP POLAND CURB POLLUTION (Reuters) 
22)	PLANTATION TO BRING DOWN HYDERABAD TEMPERATURE (The Hindu) 
23)	IT GETS 78 MILES A GALLON, BUT US SNUBS DIESEL (NY Times) 
24)	FESTIVAL FORECASTS CHANGE IN WEATHER REPORTS (CBC) 

25)	TREE PLANTING WARNING OVER WARMING (BBC, NY Times, CNN) 
26)	EXPLORER SAYS ARCTIC ICE THINNING NOTICEABLY (NY Times, CNN) 
27)	DESERTS OF THE FUTURE (Moscow Times) 
28)	AMPHIBIAN DECLINES LINKED TO CLIMATE CHANGE (ENN) 
29)	AFRICA MOST THREATENED BY GLOBAL WARMING (AllAfrica.com) 
30)	CHANGING CLIMATE LEAVES MIGRATING BIRD BEHIND (LA Times) 

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
31)	MORE POWER TO US (Wall Street Journal) 
32)	WASHINGTON NEEDS TO BE MORE SERIOUS ABOUT CLIMATE (IHT) 
33)	BUSH IS RIGHT TO PUT HIS FOOT ON THE GAS (Daily Telegraph-UK) 
34)	DOES PROTOCOL SUIT DEVELOPING WORLD? (Dawn Pakistan) 
35)	POWER POLITICS: LOOKING TO WIN THE ENERGY ISSUE (NY Times) 
36)	IS BUSH'S POLICY TOO OIL-SLICK? (Time Magazine) 

37)	SIMPLY THE WRONG POLICY (The Guardian-UK) 
38)	BACK TO THE ENERGY STONE AGE (Washington Times)
39)	BUSH VS. THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE (NY Times)
40)	BUSINESS AS USUAL-ANOTHER FORM OF INACTION (Monitor-Ethiopia)
41)	OUR OWN PRIVATE KYOTO (The Oregonian)
42)	GLOBAL DISMAY OVER US PLAN (The Star Malaysia) 
______________________________________
1) SHIFT MAY DERAIL ENERGY PROPOSALS 
Washington Post 
May 25, 2001; Page A19 
Internet:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/states/nm/A73410-2001May24.html

President Bush's week-old energy plan faces major changes and a 
longer timetable with the Democrats returning to power in the 
Senate, legislative leaders and analysts said yesterday. The 
change in chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee, from Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) to Sen. Jeff 
Bingaman (D-N.M.), alters the outlook for some major energy 
proposals and confirms the fate of several others.

Bush's call to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal 
plain to oil and gas drilling is dead, a senior Democratic staff 
member of the committee said. The odds already were against the 
proposal. "That game was over," said Washington lobbyist and 
former senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat who 
headed the energy committee in the 1990s. Federal research funding 
for energy efficiency could increase if Senate Democrats can 
persuade the Republican-controlled House to go along with it. And 
the Senate's new majority will try to revive proposals to restrain 
emissions of carbon dioxide from energy plants and industrial 
sites, an initiative that Bush had dropped, said Howard 
Gruenspecht, resident scholar at Resources for the Future and a 
former Energy Department official. "Climate change comes back," he 
said.

Bush's proposal to give federal regulators control over the 
location of new high-voltage power lines will be sidetracked by 
Senate Democrats heeding the opposition of state governors. Bush 
still controls important parts of the energy agenda that don't 
depend on legislation, such as reviewing the enforcement of air-
quality regulations on coal plants and gasoline refineries, and a 
possible increase in the output of nuclear power plants, Johnston 
noted. "I think the core of this [plan] will remain intact," said 
Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which 
is conducting a $1 million lobbying campaign for its energy 
agenda. 

"Everybody recognizes we have to get more supply and we have to 
get it where we're going to use it. Everybody recognizes we have 
to revisit nuclear [power]," Donohue said. Dan Becker of the 
Sierra Club in Washington said it isn't clear what Democratic' 
control of the Senate means to energy policy, because even from 
the minority position the party could have blocked some of the 
most controversial proposals. Before the change in power, Bush 
"wasn't going to be able to build new nuclear power plants and 
drill in ANWR, but we weren't going to be able to solve global 
warming either," Becker said. Those stalemates may continue.

The Republican goal of producing an energy bill by July 4 appears 
spiked. Bingaman said there is too much work to be done on too 
many important issues to permit such fast consideration. "We need 
to take the time to be sure we've done the best we can to 
understand the problem," Bingaman said in an interview. "I don't 
want to see us rush through something that is half-baked." The one 
exception is the possibility of Senate action to restrain 
California's high wholesale electricity prices, which have forced 
the state's largest utility into bankruptcy court and are draining 
the state budget. Prices are expected to be even higher this 
summer.

While Bush and Murkowski have insisted that price controls would 
only make California's energy shortages worse, the Democratic 
energy bill introduced by Bingaman and colleagues includes 
electricity price restraints for the state. Bingaman said he 
preferred to see the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission limit 
wholesale price increases and will support legislation to require 
the agency to do so if it doesn't act on its own. The House Energy 
and Commerce Committee failed to agree yesterday on proposals for 
price relief for California.

Bingaman said he hoped Bush's nominees to FERC -- Pat Wood, 
chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, and Nora 
Brownwell of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission -- would 
cause the commission to reconsider its opposition to comprehensive 
price restraints for California and neighboring states.

See also-
Oil & Gas Journal:
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/web_article_display.cfm?ARTICLE_CATEGORY
=TOPST&ARTICLE_ID=102066
Times of London:
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/05/27/stifgnusa02005.h
tml?

See also-
Excerpts from "Chair Changes Likely To Alter Priorities" 
Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A82843-2001May26.html

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
On the day before Jeffords's defection from the GOP, Frank H. 
Murkowski (R-Alaska) was making plans to put a comprehensive, 300-
plus-page energy bill in front of the committee, hoping for 
approval by July 4. But now the committee will be under Jeff 
Bingaman's gavel, and the New Mexico Democrat says he's going to 
tackle energy issues in separate, smaller packages and on a slower 
timetable -- the same approach the House is following.

With Democrats in charge of the Senate's energy agenda, the door 
to oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge's coastal plain appears to be shut tight. Bingaman does 
support construction of a new natural gas pipeline linking the 
United States with gas fields in Alaska and Canada.

One of the committee's top priorities now will be legislation 
directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to restrain 
soaring wholesale electricity prices in California. And in a 
conference call Friday with industry analysts, Bingaman endorsed a 
range of energy strategies from conservation to nuclear power.

The committee will look at new approaches to regulating pollution 
discharges from refineries and power plants, including future 
limits on carbon dioxide emissions -- a key "greenhouse" gas. 
Bingaman said he hoped Congress could put the United States "into 
a responsible leadership position on climate change."

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
As if bolting the GOP wasn't bad enough, Jeffords, who is in line 
to assume the chairmanship of the environment committee, has 
championed an agenda that is likely to put him at odds with the 
White House over key environmental issues.

Jeffords has opposed drilling for oil in Alaska's wildlife refuge, 
part of Bush's energy plan. He also differs with the 
administration over global warming and the importance of reducing 
carbon dioxide emissions -- a chief cause of the Earth's rising 
temperature -- from coal-fired power plants.

Jeffords and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) have introduced 
the Clean Power Act, which would sharply reduce power plant 
emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury and carbon 
dioxide. Bush reneged on a campaign promise to reduce carbon 
dioxide emissions and instead is calling for a "three-pollutant" 
approach focusing on the reductions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur 
dioxide and mercury pollution.

2) TANAKA, FISCHER DISCUSS TIES 
Japan Times
May 26, 2001
Internet:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010526a3.htm

BEIJING (Kyodo) Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and German Vice 
Chancellor Joschka Fischer agreed Friday on the importance of 
urging the United States back to the Kyoto Protocol on global 
warming, Japanese ministry officials said. Tanaka and Fischer, 
also Germany's foreign minister, met for half an hour on the 
sidelines of the two-day foreign ministerial conference of the 
Asia-Europe Meeting ending the same day. Germany's position 
differs slightly from the European Union, whose officials have 
told Japan they are committed to the 2002 deadline for 
implementing the pact, regardless of U.S. involvement. 

Japan has remained firm on continuing to involve Washington after 
U.S. President George W. Bush announced in March that his 
administration would ditch the 1997 protocol. Tanaka and Fischer 
also confirmed that the two countries will continue efforts to 
realize the "seven pillars of cooperation in Japan-Germany 
relations in the 21st century," according to the officials. The 
seven pillars -- which include contributions to global and 
regional peace and stability -- were agreed to in a document 
signed in Tokyo in October by Fischer and Tanaka's predecessor, 
Yohei Kono.
 
The two met for the first time since Tanaka was appointed April 26 
as Japan's first female foreign minister, the two diplomats also 
welcomed the recent close bilateral cooperation on U.N. reforms 
and other issues, the officials said. At the end of the talks, 
Tanaka accepted Fischer's invitation to visit Berlin, the 
officials said. 

See also-
Japan Today: http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=9&id=28745
Financial Times:
http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?id=010526001136&
query=%22global+warming%22

3) U.S. TO PRESENT EU WITH KYOTO ALTERNATIVE 
Daily Yomiuri
25 May 2001

The United States is expected to present its alternatives to the 
1997 Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions at a June 14 
summit between the United States and the European Union in 
Goteborg, Sweden, U.S. government and European diplomatic sources 
said Wednesday. According to the sources, the U.S. alternative 
outline will adhere to market principles, such as in its inclusion 
of a mechanism that will allow industrialized countries to buy 
emission reductions from developing countries.
 
The sixth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Outline Convention on 
Climate Change (COP6) for battling global warming ended in 
November at The Hague without reaching any comprehensive 
agreement. Following the breakdown, the administration of U.S. 
President George W. Bush's announced in late March that the United 
States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases including 
carbon dioxide, would be ditching the Kyoto pact for economic 
reasons. However, the United States has said that it is interested 
in continuing climate talks outside the treaty framework and will 
join a resumed COP6 in Bonn in July. This will be the final COP6 
conference and, hence, the deadline for deciding on concrete 
measures for implementing the Kyoto pact. 

The United Sates is likely to have the COP6 meeting in when it 
presents its alternatives in Goteborg. The European source said 
that the problematic U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was of 
the greatest interest to them, and that the EU would question the 
U.S. stance at the upcoming summit. The source said the U.S. side 
should use the summit to present its outline. In a similar vein, 
the U.S. governmental sources said the United States was making 
every effort so that Bush could explain the alternatives to the EU 
side at the summit. 

The U.S. government unveiled its new energy policy on May 16. 
Under the policy, the U.S. government will propose its own 
measures to combat global warming on the basis of market 
mechanisms and tax credits. However, the U.S. government has 
already stated it will not restrict carbon dioxide emissions from 
thermal power plants in the United States. Adding to existing 
doubts about whether the U.S. government's proposed alternatives 
to the Kyoto Protocol will be effective. 

4) KYOTO PROTOCOL DEPENDENT ON JAPAN AND OTHER U.S. ALLIES, 
WALLSTROM SAYS 
Japan Times
May 24, 2001
Internet:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010524b3.htm

BRUSSELS (Kyodo) The European Union environment chief has 
expressed hope that Japan will persevere in its attempts to 
salvage the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, despite the withdrawal of the 
United States. "Since we want to ratify (the Kyoto Protocol) next 
year, we are dependent on Japan" and other traditional U.S. 
allies, as well as Russia, to bring the pact into force as early 
as 2002, EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said in an 
interview. Wallstrom said the EU will step up its efforts to 
cooperate with Japan, adding that negotiations on issues highly 
important to both sides can begin ahead of July's U.N. conference 
on climate change. 

She expressed concerns, however, that Japan and other U.S. allies, 
including Canada and Australia, may follow the U.S. move if 
Washington remains out of the protocol, because they are 
economically dependent on the U.S. Washington has shown no 
indication of its intent to rejoin the international accord aimed 
at curbing global warming. "It could be difficult for some of 
those traditionally tied very close to the United States to 
actually take sides against the United States," Wallstrom said. 
"Even if some of (the allies) now say they are committed to the 
protocol, there is of course a risk in the end." 

Under the worst-case scenario, the U.S. may recruit traditional 
allies to strengthen its revised position, Wallstrom said. The 
sixth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on 
Climate Change (COP6), held in The Hague, ended in November 
without any comprehensive agreement. Germany later announced its 
plan to host a resumed COP6 meeting, due to be held in Bonn 
between July 16 and 27. 

Following the breakdown, U.S. President George W. Bush's 
administration announced in late March that the U.S. would ditch 
the agreement and present an "innovative" alternative plan. The 
U.S. is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, one of the 
main greenhouse gases. Wallstrom described one of the main 
obstacles to the Bonn meeting as "the feeling of (operating in) a 
vacuum," whereby without knowing what the U.S. intends to do, most 
parties consider it difficult to agree on tough issues such as the 
so-called carbon sinks, responsible for the natural absorption of 
greenhouse gases by trees and soil. 

"I think it is very important to anticipate what we want to see as 
an outcome of discussions in Bonn. How do we define a success? We 
will have to continue to look for a realistic but still important 
step forward," she said, hinting that expectations for the resumed 
conference could be lowered. Wallstrom stressed the EU's role as 
crucial, saying Brussels is trying to take charge of the situation 
while relying heavily on the assistance of Japan. 

She said an agreement between Japan and the EU could facilitate a 
comprehensive accord, adding that the EU will maintain close ties 
with Tokyo and other key players, including developing countries 
that are most affected by droughts and other consequences of 
global warming. Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi met Sunday 
with Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk in Narita, Chiba 
Prefecture, to discuss how to proceed with negotiations toward the 
conference. Pronk will chair the Bonn meeting. 

While Kawaguchi did not disclose the contents of the talks, she 
told a news conference that Japan will do its best to bring the 
Kyoto Protocol into effect by the 2002 target date, urging the EU 
to show more flexibility in an attempt to bring Washington to the 
negotiating table. Wallstrom was dismissive of Kawaguchi's 
remarks, calling them unfair. "You give some and you get some," 
the former Swedish social affairs minister said. "This is how we 
should go for continued discussions." 

Wallstrom said the compromise paper, presented to the parties by 
Pronk in April, would not form the basis of further negotiations 
because many parties, including Japan, expressed dissatisfaction 
with the proposals. Developed countries will meet in The Hague on 
June 5 and 28 in a bid to find some common ground and finalize 
preparations for Bonn, Wallstrom said. 

The Kyoto agreement, negotiated and signed under U.N. auspices, 
requires the world's industrialized countries to impose binding 
limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases that experts believe 
are causing significant changes in the Earth's climate. Under the 
accord, wealthy nations committed themselves to reducing their 
collective carbon dioxide emissions along with five other 
greenhouse gases. Japan is required to cut emissions by 6 percent 
compared with 1990 levels during the five-year period from 2008 to 
2012, while the U.S. is committed to 7 percent and the EU 8 
percent. 

5) EU, U.S. TALK ON ENVIRONMENT BUT STAY DEADLOCKED
New York Times
May 23, 2001
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-environment-c.html?search
pv=reuters

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The European Union and the United States 
remained deadlocked on environmental policies on Wednesday after 
their first high-level meeting since Washington issued a 
controversial new energy plan last week. ``The situation is 
unchanged. We disagree on the climate issue,'' Sweden's 
Environment Minister Kjell Larsson told Reuters after meeting U.S. 
Director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christine Todd 
Whitman.

Sweden holds the EU's rotating presidency. He said the new energy 
plan -- criticized by the EU for promoting use of fossil fuels oil 
and coal and for doing too little to promote conservation -- made 
it impossible for the United States to return to a global pact to 
curb global warming. President Bush had already rejected the 1997 
Kyoto protocol in March, stating it was too costly and unfair that 
developing countries were not included in the pact.

Whitman, in Stockholm where she signed a U.N. treaty to outlaw 12 
toxic chemicals, said she was disappointed by the outcry at the 
energy plan and said Bush would prove himself a leader in 
combating pollution. ``I was a little surprised at (criticisms of) 
the energy plan...It was a little disappointing because...I don't 
think people have really read it,'' she told reporters before 
meeting Larsson. ``I think that as we move forward they will see 
that in fact this president is very committed to these 
environmental goals and is someone who will be a leader in this 
area,'' she added.

She said the energy plan would not push up U.S. emissions of 
greenhouse gases. The separate Kyoto protocol calls on 
industrialized states to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide by 
an average five percent from 1990's levels by 2012. ``I'm very 
disappointed that we can't continue to work globally within the 
Kyoto process,'' Larsson said earlier. The EU says the plan will 
aggravate global warming and does little to encourage 
conservation.

Washington has won little credit in Stockholm for signing the U.N. 
convention with almost 130 other nations Wednesday to outlaw or 
minimize use of a ``dirty dozen'' persistent organic pollutants 
(POPs). Rick Hind, a campaigner for the environmental watch-dog 
group Greenpeace, gave Whitman a T-shirt saying ``TOXIC PATROL'' 
immediately after she signed and called for the elimination of all 
POPs in the United States within a generation. Hind told Reuters 
Whitman had pledged to do so.

Whitman told reporters that Bush would soon be ready to outline 
his alternative plans for combating global warming after he 
ditched the 1997 Kyoto pact. But she stopped short of confirming 
whether he would unveil the plan at a meeting with European Union 
leaders in Sweden next month. Canada, the first nation to sign and 
ratify the POPs treaty Wednesday, also predicted that U.S. CO2 
emissions would increase as a consequence of the new energy plan, 
which could raise demand for energy imports from Canada. ``The 
largest energy relationship in the world is between Canada and the 
United States,'' Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson told 
Reuters, saying Canada exported oil and gas and other energy worth 
$52 billion a year to its neighbor.

``Despite any increase in energy sales to the United States...we 
will nevertheless meet our Kyoto commitments of minus seven 
percent of 1990s levels,'' he said. Among critics of the U.S. 
energy plan, the head of the U.N. forum on climate change, Jan 
Pronk, described it as ``a disastrous development'' and said it 
would contribute to push up world temperatures.

6) ANNAN DERIDES U.S. FOR REJECTING GLOBAL WARMING ACCORD
New York Times
May 20, 2001
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/international-un-anna.html

MEDFORD, Mass. - The United States, as the world's biggest 
polluter, has a special responsibility to help fight global 
warming and promote conservation, U.N. Secretary General Kofi 
Annan said on Sunday. ``The United States, as you probably know, 
is the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, largely 
because it is the world's most successful economy,'' Annan said in 
a commencement address at Tuft's Fletcher School of Law and 
Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts. ``That makes it especially 
important for it to join in reducing emissions and in the broader 
quest for energy efficiency and conservation,'' he said.

In a speech extending his criticism of President Bush's decision 
in March to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, 
Annan warned that ignoring conservation could damage economic 
growth around the world. He added that the international community 
was in danger of losing hard-won gains in the fight against 
climate change. ``There is concern throughout the world about the 
decision of the new administration to oppose the Protocol,'' Annan 
said, according to prepared remarks.

Annan has called the Bush administration move ``unfortunate'' and 
after coming under intense and widespread criticism about its 
decision, the United States agreed recently to attend the next 
round of international talks on climate change in Bonn, Germany in 
July. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto pact after criticizing it as 
faulty and harmful the U.S. economy. The administration also said 
it was unfair that developing nations were exempt from the first 
phase of restrictions on emissions of pollutants.

'GREAT BENEFITS AT LITTLE OR NO COSTS'
But Annan attacked the assertion that cutting emissions and other 
conservation measures would hurt economies. ``In fact, the 
opposite is true: unless we protect resources and the earth's 
natural capital, we shall not be able to sustain economic 
growth,'' he said. ``It is also said that conservation, while 
admirable, has only limited potential. But economists how broadly 
agree that improved energy efficiency and other 'no regrets' 
strategies could bring great benefits at little or no costs,'' 
Annan said in what appeared to be a rejection of remarks by U.S. 
Vice President Dick Cheney that conservation was a personal virtue 
but not the basis of a sound energy policy.

Annan dismissed arguments that global warming is an unproved 
phenomenon and that more studies should be undertaken to be sure 
it a real threat. ``Imagine melting polar icecaps and rising sea 
levels, threatening beloved and highly developed coastal areas 
such as Cape Cod with erosion and storm surges,'' he said. 
``Imagine a warmer and wetter world in which infectious diseases 
such as malaria and yellow fever spread more easily.

``This is not some distant, worst-case scenario. It is tomorrow's 
forecast. Nor is this science fiction. It is sober prediction, 
based on the best science available,'' he said. Annan called on 
all world leaders to show that they take climate change seriously 
but said developed nations had to lead the way because they 
release most of the pollutants that cause for global warming. He 
also said developing countries were not getting a pass on their 
responsibilities.

``Developing countries will have to do their part in due course; 
their exclusion from emissions commitments, it should be stressed, 
is only for the first phase,'' Annan said, noting that China and 
other developing nations were taking steps to limit the growth in 
their emissions. The Kyoto Protocol calls for industrialized 
nations to cut emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 
levels by 2012, to slow the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse 
gases in the atmosphere.

See also--
BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1341000/1341421.stm
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/20/annan.global.warming.ap/index.html
Independent Bangladesh:
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/may/23/23052001pd.htm#A2 

7) THE DETAILS: EXCESSIVE REGULATION IS BLAMED FOR ENERGY WOES
New York Times
May 18, 2001 
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/18/politics/18ENER.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, May 17 - The Bush administration's national energy 
policy is a glossy, picture-filled and comprehensive look at 
nearly every energy issue facing the United States today, but 
buried in the text is single stark conclusion: Excessive 
regulation has produced the worst energy crisis in decades. The 
report states at the outset that the nation faces an energy 
crisis, which it defines as a "severe imbalance between supply and 
demand," because there has been no comprehensive policy that aims 
to increase domestic sources of energy. Energy problems have not 
been this bad since the 1970's, it says.

But unlike the situation in the 1970's, when the nation grappled 
with an international oil boycott and the enemy was undoubtedly 
OPEC, the only identifiable villain in this report is the 
proliferation of domestic regulations, most of them aimed at 
protecting the environment. The administration views many federal 
regulations, especially as interpreted by the Clinton 
administration, as impeding industry's ability to find oil and 
natural gas and to build power plants and pipelines. "Regulation 
is needed in such a complex field, but it has become overly 
burdensome," the report says. "Regulatory hurdles, delays in 
issuing permits and economic uncertainty are limiting investment 
in new facilities, making our energy markets more vulnerable to 
transmission bottlenecks, price spikes and supply disruptions."

The 170-page policy paper devotes the bulk of its text, which 
reads in parts like a nonpolitical academic study, to examining 
how to reduce energy demand and cultivate clean sources of energy 
like wind and biomass, as agricultural, human and animal waste are 
known. The administration has emphasized that of its 105 specific 
recommendations, highlighted throughout the text with blue stars, 
42 deal with conservation, efficiency and renewable energy 
sources, while only 35 address supplies of traditional energy 
sources. But the report's priorities are evident from the start. 
The first chart in the report, which illustrates how energy 
consumption is outpacing production, uses a mix of government 
statistics to make the future shortfall in production seem more 
acute than it might turn out to be.

The chart uses estimates from the Energy Information 
Administration to show rising energy consumption over the next 20 
years. But it relies on data from the Sandia National Laboratories 
to show production increasing at the same pace it did in the 
1990's, when record low prices for electricity, natural gas and 
oil discouraged domestic production. The energy agency actually 
projects that energy production will rise at a much faster pace 
than it did in the 1990's because of a cyclical recovery in 
production.

The policy recommendations with the most teeth, many of which the 
president has the power to implement without Congressional 
approval, suggest that the administration views increasing the 
supply and improving the infrastructure of oil, natural gas and 
nuclear power, as overwhelming priorities. Among the many 
regulations it has vowed to review, streamline, expedite or 
eliminate are land-use restrictions in the Rocky Mountains, lease 
stipulations for off-shore and coastal zones where oil and gas are 
plentiful and environmental reviews required when utilities want 
to retool power plants or oil companies want to expand refineries. 

The federal government controls 31 percent of the land in the 
United States, and too much of that is off- limits to energy 
companies, the report says. It calls the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, where drilling is banned by Congress, "the single most 
promising prospect in the United States." Democrats and moderate 
Republicans have already lined up against the lifting of land and 
off-shore drilling restrictions elsewhere, making the prospect of 
short-term action in those areas unlikely. The regulatory rollback 
singles out the Environmental Protection Agency's procedures for 
approving the updating of power plants, especially those using 
coal, and refineries. Industry executives complain that the 
oversight, known as New Source Review, became too aggressive in 
the Clinton years, resulting in widespread litigation that 
actually discouraged companies from taking steps to clean up 
operations.

The report also says that the Justice Department will be asked to 
review pending litigation with an eye to ending lawsuits against 
energy companies that did not comply with the Clinton 
administration's interpretations of environmental rules. The Bush 
team's regulatory focus has already prompted a backlash in 
Congress, where Democrats say the solution to energy shortages is 
investing in new energy efficiency technologies, not loosening 
environmental controls. "This report relies on the heavy polluters 
of the past and looks to ease important environmental 
protections," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Democrat 
on the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Although the report reviews all the major ways the nation could 
reduce energy demand or boost supply of nonpolluting energy 
sources in the years to come, its recommendations in these areas 
are relatively weak. It proposes no specific targets for energy 
efficiency, offers only vague guidance on financing, and puts off 
decisions in many areas until new research is complete.

Conservation: Plan Proposes Voluntary Efforts 
The Bush energy policy describes conservation as one of the 
"important elements of a sound energy policy," and notes that in 
the last three decades, the American economy has grown nearly five 
times faster than energy use. But in looking to the future, the 
policy shies away from mandatory approaches to conservation, 
except to direct that federal agencies develop a plan in the next 
30 days to "conserve energy use at their facilities" to the 
maximum extent possible.

That approach has faced sharp criticism from environmental groups 
and many Democrats, who say the Bush plan puts too much emphasis 
on increasing energy supply and too little on reducing demand. 
With average fuel economy for passenger vehicles now at a 20-year 
low, officials of national environmental groups have said the most 
important immediate step the administration could have taken would 
have been to tighten automobile fuel efficiency standards, which 
have not been changed in more than a decade.

Instead, Mr. Bush's energy task force recommended that a review of 
those standards by the secretary of transportation be delayed 
until at least July, to await a study by the National Academy of 
Sciences, which is to report on the ability of automakers to meet 
stricter fuel- efficiency standards. The task force also directed 
that any future standards "increase efficiency without negatively 
impacting the U.S. automobile industry," a guideline that 
environmentalists said would most likely restrict all but 
incremental change.

The Bush policy does call on the treasury secretary to work with 
Congress on legislation that would offer a tax credit of 
undetermined size for fuel-efficient vehicles. It recommends that 
"a temporary, efficiency based income tax credit be available for 
purchase of new hybrid fuel-cell vehicles between 2002 and 2007."

On other conservation fronts, the Bush policy calls for the energy 
secretary to promote greater energy efficiency, in part by 
expanding the government's Energy Star labeling program providing 
consumers information about energy efficiency of appliances beyond 
the air-conditioners, refrigerators, freezers and other appliances 
already covered. Mr. Bush's policy also directs the energy 
secretary to improve the energy efficiency of particular 
appliances.
DOUGLAS JEHL

Coal: New Technologies Are Highlighted
Coal, the fuel already used to generate most of this country's 
electricity, could create more kilowatt-hours per ton and less of 
the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain, according to the 
Bush administration's energy plan, which proposes spending $2 
billion in federal money on research and demonstration projects. 

The country has hundreds of years of coal available, probably at 
stable prices. "New clean-coal technologies are showing that air 
pollution can be reduced and energy efficiency increased, by using 
America's abundant supply of coal," according to the report. But 
even when cleaned of conventional pollutants, environmentalists 
point out, coal produces far more carbon dioxide, which is thought 
to cause global climate change, than natural gas or oil. The 
federal government has spent about $1.8 billion on clean-coal 
technologies in the last 15 years, combined with $3.6 billion from 
states and private companies, but some money available for 
subsidies has gone unspent.

The report highlights a technology developed by Powerspan, a 
company in New Durham, N.H. In a test using a tiny part of the 
exhaust from a First Energy plant in Shadyside, Ohio, the 
Powerspan technology cut nitrogen oxides, which cause smog, by 76 
percent, and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, by 44 
percent, while reducing mercury and other toxic metals. First 
Energy hopes to soon replicate the test on a larger scale at a 
plant near Cleveland. 

David G. Hawkins, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: 
"The president's plan proposes to squander $2 billion by making it 
available to virtually any coal project that wants to put the 
label `clean' on its proposal. It would be much better to take a 
small fraction of the $2 billion and concentrate it on the most 
promising technology."
MATTHEW L. WALD

Nuclear Power: Technology Called Safer Than in Past
Nuclear power plant construction has been dormant in the United 
States for the last two decades, but as President Bush pointed 
out, existing plants provide 20 percent of the nation's 
electricity with 103 plants functioning. Still, the last American 
nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973. Since 
then, safety requirements, which increased after the 1979 accident 
at Three Mile Island, have kept the industry from expanding. It 
has also been plagued by financial woes, including high interest 
rates and long construction times, stretching the average time to 
put a new plant in service to 14 years and souring Wall Street on 
financing nuclear power plants.

The Bush energy plan could give a substantial boost to the 
industry. It declares the technology much safer than it was 20 
years ago. It says the administration should encourage the 
relicensing of nuclear plants, which would not require 
Congressional action, and should seek legislation to reduce taxes 
that it says impede mergers of nuclear utilities.

But it still has no solution for the complex problem of nuclear-
waste disposal. Plants now store nuclear waste on site, waiting 
for a national repository. "The Department of Energy is over a 
decade behind schedule for accepting nuclear waste from 
utilities," the report concedes. Studies to determine whether 
Yucca Mountain, Nev., is suitable for a repository have dragged 
on. The report echoes an industry idea to add reactors to sites 
that already have them. This approach could eliminate the highly 
contentious issue of finding new sites for such plants.

"Many U.S. nuclear plant sites were designed to host four to six 
reactors, and most operate only two or three," the report states. 
Polls show that Americans are less concerned about nuclear power 
than they are about coal, largely because nuclear power is cleaner 
and does not contribute to global warming.
KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Looking Abroad: Better U.S. Access to Oil Is a Goal
The Bush administration's energy policy recommends expanding world 
production of oil, especially in Latin America and Africa, while 
rethinking American support for sanctions against energy-producing 
nations and deepening links to resource-rich Canada and Mexico. 
The plan notes that the United States, which now consumes more 
than 25 percent of the oil produced worldwide, will find itself 
increasingly in competition for oil with rapidly industrializing 
countries like China. It largely recommends meeting that demand by 
improving American diplomatic ties and the overall business 
climate in certain countries, taking advantage of new technologies 
and bold construction strategies to develop unexploited fields and 
avoiding an international commitment on global warming.

"We can strengthen our own energy security and the shared 
prosperity of the global economy by working cooperatively with key 
countries and institutions to expand the sources and types of 
global energy supplies," the plan says. Environmental groups 
criticized that strategy, saying it gives short shrift to 
conservation and energy efficiency and would encourage developing 
nations to add to pollution associated with climate change. The 
plan focuses on improving American access to oil, noting that the 
United States is virtually self- sufficient in all other energy 
resources. The document urges Washington to deepen its integration 
with Canada, the nation's largest energy trading partner, and 
Mexico.

The plan urges federal support for a privately constructed natural 
gas pipeline to run from Alaska, across Canada to the mainland 
United States. The plan encourages exploration specifically in the 
Caribbean, Brazil and West Africa and the Caspian nations. It 
calls on federal officials to help clear obstacles to construction 
of an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. Still, it 
predicts that Persian Gulf nations will supply as much as two- 
thirds of the world's oil in two decades and urges officials to 
seek a better investment climate in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, 
Qatar and United Arab Emirates. The plan urges a comprehensive 
review of the nation's policy on sanctions, taking "energy 
security" into account. The oil-producing nations Iran, Iraq and 
Libya are currently under economic sanctions backed by Washington.
CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

8) ANGER OVER BUSH ENERGY PLAN
CNN
May 18, 2001
Internet:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/05/18/bush.reaction/index.html

LONDON, England -- Proposals aimed at addressing the U.S. energy 
crisis have been condemned by environmental groups and some 
European ministers. President George W. Bush announced on Thursday 
plans to tackle his country's "most serious energy shortage" since 
the 1970s. Bush wants more reliance on oil, coal and nuclear 
power, and $10 billion in tax credits for conservation measures. 
Charles Secrett, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth in 
Britain, said the plan would mean "a new generation of nuclear 
power stations (and) destruction of the Alaskan wilderness." He 
said it would also mean "other environmentally disastrous 
proposals will distance the United States even further from the 
main strain of environmental concern across the rest of the 
planet." 

Bush's proposals have been drawn up by a task force led by Vice 
President Dick Cheney. They were presented amid protests outside 
during a speech by the president to local business leaders in St. 
Paul, Minnesota. The state of California has been hit by a series 
of rolling power blackouts and increasing shortages, and Bush 
warned: "If we fail to act, we could face a darker future, a 
future that is unfortunately being previewed in rising prices at 
the gas pump and rolling blackouts in California." 

But Jan Pronk, head of the U.N. forum on climate change, dubbed 
Bush's plan a "disastrous development" for international efforts 
to slow output of greenhouse gases. Pronk, also the Dutch 
environment minister, told Dutch television the proposal would 
"undoubtedly" lead to increased output of carbon dioxide. "In 
terms of the possibility of forming an integrated policy (to cut 
emissions), this is a disastrous development," he said. The 
environmental pressure group Greenpeace said increasing the use of 
fossil fuels went against efforts to reduce the output of 
greenhouse gases. 

A U.N. scientific body has said greenhouse gases, such as carbon 
dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels, contribute to 
warming of the Earth's surface. It is feared that will lead to 
higher ocean levels, changes in weather patterns including more 
severe storms. "This plan is going to substantially increase U.S. 
greenhouse gas emissions at a time when most of the industrialised 
countries are trying to reduce them," Greenpeace climate policy 
director Bill Hare told Reuters. Some European allies of the U.S. 
were angry that Bush has rejected the Kyoto protocol on global 
warming, which commits developed countries to a five percent cut 
of greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The 
president's top economic adviser Glenn Hubbard faced criticism 
over the move at a meeting of industrialised nations in Paris on 
Thursday. 

French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius said the U.S. rejection of 
Kyoto in March could damage Kyoto's success. "The U.S. withdrawal 
from the Kyoto protocol endangers the entire process," Fabius 
said. Anger in Europe was mirrored by environmentalists in the 
Pacific, where low-lying islands are among the most vulnerable to 
climate change. "We are all environmental criminals. But there 
must be a new category for the United States. I would like to see 
an international justice system that would recognise this crime," 
said Patrina Dumaru, climate officer for the Fiji-based Pacific 
Concerns Resources Centre. "If the worst comes to the worst, if it 
comes to the crunch in climate change, some communities and 
cultures here will cease to exist. It's totally unjust," said 
Dumaru. 

Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown said: "He's (Bush) come 
up with a combination of Exxon Valdez and Chernobyl." Brown was 
referring to the 1989 tanker oil spill off Alaska and the Ukraine 
nuclear plant disaster 15 years ago. But Japanese government and 
industry officials welcomed Bush's proposals. "We are greatly 
encouraged by the fact that a nation that plays a key role in the 
direction world energy policy takes has shifted to backing nuclear 
power," said a spokesman for Japan's government-backed Federation 
of Electric Power Companies. Japan operates 51 commercial nuclear 
reactors, which supply about a third of the nation's electric 
power. 

See also-
IHT: http://www.iht.com/articles/20412.html
The Age: http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/05/19/FFXOYQ1UUMC.html

9) PACIFIC STORM OVER U.S. ENERGY PLANS
CNN
May 18, 2001
Internet:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/05/18/australia.bush.enviro
nment.01/index.html

SYDNEY, Australia -- A storm of anger has broken out over a U.S. 
plan to boost coal, oil and nuclear power production. Pacific 
environmentalists on Friday branded President George W. Bush's 
energy policy a "crime" and argued it would play a direct role in 
rising sea levels around the globe and wiping out low-lying 
islands. "If the worst comes to the worst, if it comes to the 
crunch in climate change, some communities and cultures here will 
cease to exist. It's totally unjust," said Patrina Dumaru, climate 
officer for the Fiji-based Pacific Concerns Resources Center, an 
umbrella group for non-governmental organizations. 

Bush, a former Texas oil man, on Thursday said he planed to tackle 
his country's "most serious energy shortage" since the 1970s, by 
boosting oil, coal and nuclear power, and handing out $10 billion 
in tax credits for conservation measures. But Bush's plan goes 
against a U.N. scientific body that has said that greenhouse gases 
-- such as carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels 
-- contribute to warming of the Earth's surface. This in turn 
could lead to higher sea levels and changes in weather patterns, 
including more severe storms, scientists argue. 

Driving up fuel production
Bush's energy plan comes in the wake of the United States dumping 
the 1997 Kyoto protocol earlier this year. Kyoto committed the 
main industrialized nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 
an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Bush said the 
accord was economically harmful and impractical, as it did not 
include developing nations, like China. His advisors have also 
said that scientists are divided over the connection between 
greenhouse gases and global warming. Bush's proposals are aimed at 
reducing the cost of petrol and making electricity supplies more 
reliable 

But Jan Pronk, head of the U.N. forum on climate change, on 
Thursday dubbed Bush's latest plan as a "disastrous development" 
for international efforts to slow output of greenhouse gases. 
Environmental groups have also slammed Bush's "green" incentives -
- tax incentives for hybrid vehicles that use a combination of 
solar power and petrol, and for homeowners to install solar 
panels. 

Bush's energy 'scam'
"Bush's energy 'scam' clearly shows that the U.S. Government and 
the U.S. corporate fossil fuel industry don't give a damn about 
preventing dangerous climate change", said Greenpeace New 
Zealand's climate campaigner Sue Connor. Australian Greens Party 
leader Senator Bob Brown said Bush's proposals were "not only 
environmentally shaky, they're awesomely silly". "This is the 
world's biggest superpower moving in the opposite direction of the 
rest of the globe," he said. "It's America moving further down the 
dirty and dangerous direction of oil, coal and nuclear power, and 
it's Bush repaying the giant power utilities that backed his 
election campaign." 

However, the proposal drew applause from Japan. "This decision is 
good news for Japan's energy policy," a Ministry of Economy, Trade 
and Industry official said. The Federation of Electric Power 
Companies, a Japanese government-backed industry body comprising 
10 key power utilities, echoed the sentiment. "We are greatly 
encouraged by the fact that a nation that plays a key role in the 
direction world energy policy takes has shifted to backing nuclear 
power," a federation spokesman said. 

Green groups also voiced concern over Bush's plan to boost nuclear 
power output. The Pacific was a leading testing ground for U.S. 
and French nuclear bomb tests from the 1960s to the mid-1990s, and 
opposition in the region to nuclear power is fierce. 

10) U.N. SAYS U.S. ENERGY POLICY FUELS GLOBAL WARMING
Reuters
May 21, 2001
Internet:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010521/sc/environment_climate_un_dc_3.
html

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. forum on climate change 
said Monday a new U.S. energy policy would add to global warming 
and that he planned an international meeting to try to salvage the 
Kyoto climate pact. President Bush 's new energy policy ``will 
make it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible,'' to meet the 
original targets for cutting greenhouse gases, Jan Pronk told 
Reuters in an interview. ``The energy plan will in my view 
undoubtedly increase the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rather 
than decrease or stabilize them,'' said Pronk who is also the 
Dutch environment minister. 

Pronk, who was attending a U.N. conference in Stockholm, said he 
was planning a new preparatory meeting in the Netherlands June 25-
28 to try to save the 1997 Kyoto pact to curb global warming. 
Washington rejected the pact in March, saying it was too expensive 
and excluded developing countries. Pronk said the Bush energy 
plan, which promotes extended use of oil, coal and nuclear power 
in the U.S. and offers $10 billion in tax credits for 
conservation, was a step in the wrong direction. ``What we might 
have expected was an integrated plan, energy and climate...Now we 
have an energy plan setting the limits for a climate plan which is 
still not yet there,'' he said. ``Everybody is waiting for the 
climate plan.'' 

NEW PLAN IN TWO WEEKS 
Pronk said he would present in two weeks time a final legal text 
of a compromise proposal seeking to rescue the Kyoto pact. The 
Netherlands talks are to lay the groundwork for global climate 
negotiations in mid-July in Bonn, Germany. Under Pronk's plan, 
rich countries would meet on June 25, developing countries on June 
26 and joint sessions would be held on June 27-28. He said the 
United States was expected to attend the meeting. 

Pronk described the global talks as ``very hard'' after the U.S. 
rejection of the Kyoto accord and called on the world's largest 
polluter not to urge its traditional allies Japan, Canada and 
Australia to follow. Pronk said the compromise included 
concessions by the European Union to let Japan use its CO2-
absorbing forests to limit emissions by industry and cars. ``The 
European Union has said that we are willing to accommodate 
Japan...I think it is a step forward, this flexibility,'' he said. 

He said he doubted Japan would pull out of the Kyoto protocol. 
``If there is any country in support of Kyoto it is Japan...The 
whole negotiation of Kyoto took place in Japan, Japan was in the 
lead. The difficulty at the moment is the U.S. position.'' He said 
the EU should not try to force the United States to return to the 
Kyoto agreement through trade sanctions. ``Some countries are 
speaking about it. I'm not in favor. Sanctions are always counter-
productive,'' he said. 

11) S AFRICA LAMENTS US WITHDRAWAL FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL 
Times of India
24 May 2001
Internet: http://www.timesofindia.com/240501/24afrc2.htm

CAPE TOWN: The South African government on Wednesday called 
President George W Bush's decision to withdraw the United States 
from the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gases "a major setback." 
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told members of parliament: "We 
hope the American negotiators will rethink the decision and return 
to the negotiating table." Pahad, who was addressing parliament's 
foreign affairs committee, said the matter would be raised at the 
World Summit on Sustainable Development -- the Earth Summit -- 
which will be held in South Africa in September 2002. 

The protocol calls on industrialised nations to reduce emissions 
of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 5.2 percent of 1990 
levels by 2010. Bush announced his withdrawal in March, calling 
the treaty "unfair" and saying its implementation would be too 
costly. Ratifying Kyoto will be tough without the United States, 
as it must include countries representing at least 55 percent of 
the industrialised world's total carbon dioxide emissions. The 
United States alone accounts for 36 per cent of that output. (AFP)

12) AN INTERFAITH CALL FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE
ENN
May 25, 2001
Internet:
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/05/05252001/interfaith_43711.as
p

Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and 
Jews, Greek and Syrian Orthodox patriarchs - the heads of 
religious denominations and senior leaders of American faith 
groups have added their voices to the national energy debate 
following the release of the National Energy Policy last week. The 
Bush administration's policy supports drilling for oil on public 
lands, and the expansion of nuclear power and clean coal 
technologies, but it expresses limited support for renewable 
energy and conservation. 

In an open letter to President George W. Bush, the Congress, and 
American People entitled, "Let There Be Light' (Gen 1:3): Energy 
Conservation and God's Creation," the leaders of the religious 
coalition said our decisions on energy policy raise "fundamental 
moral and religious questions." Describing conservation as "a 
personal and a public virtue - a comprehensive moral value," the 
religious leaders said their combined congregations include a 
total of more than 80 million Americans. 

The religious community is one of the Republican Party's strongest 
constituencies, so while scientists, environmentalists and 
Democrats have criticized the Bush energy policy, the President 
and his administration will be most likely to listen to this 
coalition. The coalition urged President Bush to ratify the Kyoto 
Protocol, an international agreement to limit the emission of heat 
trapping greenhouse gases linked to global warming which the 
President rejected in March. Most other countries are moving 
towards ratification without the United States. 

"We must join in binding international agreements, such as the 
Kyoto Protocol, which set energy conservation targets and 
timetables," the religious leaders wrote. "Preventing climate 
change is a preeminent expression of faithfulness to our Creator 
God. Energy conservation is global leadership and solidarity." 
With less than five percent of the world's population, our nation 
is generating more than 22 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, 
the leaders reminded Bush. "The United States has a moral 
responsibility to lead a transition to a new sustainable global 
energy system," they wrote. 

While acknowledging that they "are not scientists, energy experts, 
or policymakers," the leaders wrote urged all Americans to 
"reflect carefully and speak clearly from their deepest moral and 
religious convictions about the President's recently announced 
energy plan." "We are releasing this letter to encourage 
discussion of religious and moral values," said Mark X. Jacobs, 
executive director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish 
Life (COEJL), which circulated the letter in the Jewish community. 
"This is not a partisan effort. Among the signers are Republicans 
and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. What has brought us 
together are common values and a common vision for our nation's 
energy future." 

American can be prosperous and preserve the environment the 
coalition maintains. There is no need to sacrifice economic 
security to assure environmental health, the letter states. The 
religious leaders outline five major values: stewardship, 
intergenerational responsibility, justice, prudent human action, 
and global leadership. "Far more than rolling blackouts and 
gasoline price increases are at stake," the open letter states. 
"The future of God's creation on earth; the nature and durability 
of our economy; our public health and public lands; the 
environment and quality of life we bequeath our children and 
grandchildren. We are being called to consider national purpose, 
not just policy." 

This is the first debate on energy in a generation, and it takes 
place under unprecedented circumstances, the religious leaders 
point out. Global warming is "a scientific fact," they admit, 
although this is an admission that the Bush administration has not 
yet made. Population growth has added two billion people to the 
planet, the leaders note, the aspirations of the developing world 
are raising consumption; advances in new technologies for clean 
and efficient energy make renewable energy a technological and 
economic option. 

"We must take time to engage this challenge as a moral people at a 
pivotal, historic moment," the coalition urges. "The gifts of 
God's creation must be shared fairly among God's children," the 
religious coalition says, and energy policy must be an instrument 
of social and economic justice. "The first beneficiaries of a new 
energy policy should be the poor, the vulnerable, and the sick to 
whom we can provide assistance with high energy bills, inexpensive 
mobility through expanded mass transit, cleaner air by reducing 
pollution from power plants, and lower gasoline prices through 
strict monitoring of oil companies for price-gouging. Energy 
conservation is justice for all peoples and nations. 

Underlining their position with numerous quotes from the Bible, 
the religious leaders say it is up to all Americans "to redirect 
our national energy policy toward conservation, efficiency, 
justice, and maximum use of the perennial abundance of clean and 
renewable energy that our Creator brought into being by 
proclaiming, "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3). 

13) JAPAN FIRMS TO JOINTLY BROKER EMISSION RIGHTS
Nihon Keizai/Bloomberg  
22 May 2001
Internet:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Securities%20Firms%20News&b1
=ad_bottom1&br=blk&tp=ad_topright&T=wealthstory.ht&s=AOwcivhUcMTMgSmFw

Tokyo, May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Corp., Cosmo Oil Co. and 
11 other companies invested 333.2 million yen ($2.7 million) 
earlier this month to set up a joint venture that will broker 
trades of greenhouse gas-emission rights, the Nihon Keizai 
newspaper said without citing sources. The venture, Natsource 
Japan, will first consult companies on ways to cut their 
emissions, the paper said. In two years, the venture will begin 
arranging the sale or trade of emission rights of companies that 
have met their emission-reduction targets. 

This type of trade is based on a program introduced at the Third 
Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate 
Change in Kyoto in December 1997. The program is aimed at halting 
the progress of global warming. Among others participating in the 
venture are Tokyo Gas Co. Sumitomo Corp., Osaka Gas Co., Mizuho 
Investors Securities Co. and Natsource LLC, a U.S. gas emissions 
rights broker, the paper said. The venture is expected to generate 
revenue of 5 billion yen in 2004 from broker commission fees. 

14) US UTILITIES FORM ALLIANCE TO CURB CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS 
Reuters
May 24, 2001 
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10934

WASHINGTON - Eight U.S. utilities, concerned about their ability 
to plan future investments in power plants, are preparing a 
legislative proposal to limit carbon dioxide and other emissions 
under a voluntary, market-based system, an industry source said 
yesterday. 

The plan runs counter to a decision made earlier this year by 
President George W. Bush rejecting caps on carbon dioxide 
emissions. The president said such caps were too costly and risky, 
given the nation's worsening energy supply crunch. Carbon is 
considered the leading cause of man-made greenhouse gases, which 
are in turn blamed for global warming. 

Included in the industry proposal are a national tonnage cap for 
emissions and a gradual reduction in carbon dioxide pollution, 
according to the industry source, who spoke on condition of 
anonymity. Utilities would be allowed to go outside their own 
operations to gain credits for cutting pollution in other 
businesses, like buying clean-burning vehicles not related to 
running power plants. The industry source said the proposal seeks 
to balance the need for certainty on pollution controls with a 
transition period for utilities to adapt to new emission controls. 

WHITE HOUSE SUPPORT? 
The Bush administration was "interested" in the plan's market-
oriented design, he said. "We're trying to work in a cooperative 
way with the Bush administration to solve the problem." said the 
source. "We're looking for as much business certainty as we can 
achieve. There is now an unacceptable level of uncertainty (over 
the fate of carbon dioxide emission limits)." 

The plan is to be completed next month, after which the group will 
seek support to move the proposal in Congress. The eight firms, 
which work together on the four-pollutant plan as a coalition 
known as the Clean Energy Group, want to cap carbon, sulfur 
dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions. 

The utilities in the coalition are Conectiv , Consolidated Edison 
, Exelon Corp, Keyspan Corp , Northeast Utilities , PG&E National 
Energy Group , PSEG and Sempra Energy. In addition to more 
certainty over how future power plant emissions will be regulated, 
the group wants to ease concerns on Wall Street. Nervousness in 
the capital markets over the issue of emissions could slow 
financing for the hundreds of power plants expected to be built in 
United States in the coming decades. 

NO KYOTO 
The industry plan in no way mirrors the design of the Kyoto 
Protocol, the treaty shunned by Bush as an unworkable accord which 
would punish the U.S. economy if implemented. Kyoto mandates cuts 
in major economic nations' carbon emissions by an average 5.2 
percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Bush removed the United States 
from the process to settle a final Kyoto agreement, and is 
expected to counter with a new proposal sometime this summer. 

Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, said Wednesday that the administration would 
soon be ready to outline his alternative plans for combatting 
global warming. Whitman made her remarks to reporters in 
Stockholm, where she was among those signing a U.N. treaty to 
outlaw 12 toxic chemicals. 

The following are the general points of the plan, according to 
industry sources familiar with the proposal. 
* Sulfur dioxide would be cut 50 percent by 2008. 
* Mercury emissions would be cut 70 to 90 percent by 2012. 
* Nitrogen oxides would be capped at just over 2 million tons in 
2008, around half of current levels. 
* Carbon emissions would stabilize at the levels recorded in the 
year 2000 by 2008, and reach 1990 emission levels by 2012, the 
proposal says. Flexible mechanisms would be in place to help 
achieve the reductions. 

15) GLOBAL ENERGY FIRMS CLAIM GLOBAL WARMING MILESTONE 
ENS
24 May 2001
Internet: http://ens-news.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-24-08.html

LONDON, United Kingdom, May 24, 2001 (ENS) - Global energy 
industry association the World Energy Council has claimed 
important progress in its efforts to show that voluntary action by 
industry can play an important role in cutting greenhouse gas 
emissions. But the evidence it advances contains some startling 
flaws. Last year, the World Energy Council (WEC) created a 
database of greenhouse gas reduction projects and set a target to 
identify actions that could remove one billion tonnes of carbon 
dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent in global warming terms between 
2000 and 2005. Carbon dioxide, emitted by the combusion of coal, 
oil and natural gas, is the primary heat trapping gas blamed for 
global warming. When world negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol 
collapsed without agreement last November, the World Energy 
Council quickly publicized its initiative as evidence that 
industry was "acting" while governments were "reacting." 

WEC has now revealed that its 2005 goal is already set to be met, 
with 600 projects so far identified in 83 countries, all of which 
are detailed on the organization's website. The organization 
therefore claims to have doubled its goal for 2005 to two billion 
tonnes of CO2. How much credit industry should claim for the 
emissions reductions the World Energy Council identifies is 
questionable. Few actions on the database are specific company 
projects to reduce current emissions. Most are new low carbon 
dioxide power generation projects or programs, including a number 
of natural gas fired power stations. 

On the list is China's Three Gorges hydropower project which is 
estimated to avoid the emission of 45 million tonnes of CO2, and 
the Czech Republic's controversial Temelin nuclear plant - 3.3 
million tonnes of CO2 avoided. The database also includes 
government policies, defined as "top-down actions." France, for 
example, is listed as undertaking further development of high 
speed trains, which is expected to save 30,000 tonnes of CO2 by 
2005. Other policies include German government standards on energy 
efficiency in domestic buildings, listed as saving 3.9 million 
tonnes of CO2, and Belgian official support for combined heat and 
power. 

Efficiency measures, tree planting projects, cogeneration of heat 
and power, and utilities that are switching from coal to natural 
gas are also on the database. A typical project is a 10 megawatt 
wind power plant in Ontario, Canada located on shores of Lake 
Huron, beside a nuclear power plant. A new nuclear power plant in 
Brazil is listed on the World Energy Council database, as is a new 
nuclear power development in China. Challenged over these features 
of the database, WEC spokesperson Elene Virkkala Nekhaev conceded 
that projects listed on the database were "not necessarily 
proactive, but show what is happening." Pressed further, she 
admitted that it was "probably stretching the point" to include 
new nuclear capacity. The database does not discuss a wide range 
of environmental drawbacks to the power technologies listed that 
are unrelated to their emission of greenhouse gases. The dangers 
of nuclear waste disposal, the problems created by large 
hydropower dams and the contruction of pipelines are not outlined. 

16) ENERGY EXPERTS SAY EU MAY NOT MEET KYOTO TARGET 
Reuters
May 23, 2001 
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10922

BRUSSELS - When the United States shocked the world in March by 
withdrawing from the Kyoto treaty on global warming, the European 
Union rushed to say it would keep the agreement alive with or 
without the Americans. But the 15 EU member states which slammed 
the United States for rejecting the 1997 deal are by no means sure 
to meet their own Kyoto targets for cutting greenhouse gases, with 
many experiencing massive rises in emissions. The grounds given by 
President George W. Bush for rejecting Kyoto were that bringing 
emissions down to seven percent below 1990 levels by 2010, the 
target agreed in Kyoto by the last White House administration, 
would damage the U.S. economy. 

Soaring economic growth in the 1990s propelled U.S. emissions of 
greenhouse gases - primarily carbon dioxide from the burning of 
fossil fuels - to 11.2 percent above 1990 levels by 1998, 
according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EU 
meanwhile, with a cooler economy and help from one or two chance 
events, has managed to reduce its overall emissions. The EU's 
latest figures showed greenhouse gases were down four percent by 
1999 compared with the 1990 base line, a marked improvement on 
1998 when emissions were down 2.5 percent. 

At first glance, that seems to put the bloc well on course to 
achieving its Kyoto target of an eight percent cut by 2010, but 
analysts say this is highly unlikely without some tough new 
measures. And the reductions are very uneven. "On a country-by-
country basis things are very different," said Richard Baron, an 
expert at the Paris-based International Energy Agency. 

CHANCE EVENTS CUT EU EMISSIONS 
In its last report on greenhouse gas reductions in EU countries in 
November, the European Commission said existing policies and 
measures would at best reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions in 
2010 to 1.4 percent below the 1990 level. The drop in the EU's 
emissions to date is due mainly to chance events. The newly 
reunified Germany closed many of the dirty industries of the 
former Communist east, bringing down Germany's overall emissions 
by 16 percent by 1998. And Britain's policy to "dash for gas" and 
convert from coal-fired to less polluting natural gas power 
stations gave it a 9.5 percent emissions cut. 

"These were one-off emissions reductions - something that happened 
in the 1990s and will not happen again in this decade," World Wide 
Fund for Nature (WWF)'s Giulio Volpi said. The European Commission 
has estimated that if the EU aims its policies at certain economic 
sectors where emissions reductions will cost the least, it could 
reach its Kyoto target at an annual cost of just 0.6 percent of 
gross domestic product. Measures such as boosting renewable 
energies, improving energy efficiency and reducing industrial 
emissions could deliver a seven percent cut by 2010, the 
Commission said. But as one third of those extra savings would be 
made by Germany and Britain alone, many EU countries would still 
fall far short of their individual targets, the EU body said. 

Commission estimates show France, which has a target of 
stabilising its emissions, is facing an 11 percent increase. 
Belgium, which is supposed to cut emissions by 7.5 percent, will 
instead increase them by 13.5. Ireland, with an increase limit of 
13 percent, is set for 29 percent growth. The increases in many 
countries are due to rising transport and energy consumption, said 
Rob Bradley of the environmental group Climate Network Europe. 

Belgium and France both have the statistical disadvantage of 
relying on nuclear power, which produces no CO2, and so cannot 
achieve the relatively cheap emissions cuts which a switch from 
coal to gas can provide. For France "it's going to be getting to 
grips with the transport sector that will be essential to them", 
Bradley said. Ireland's greenhouse gas increase was due to high 
economic growth in the 1990s. Although the boom was in low-
emission, high-tech sectors of industry, increased wealth meant a 
big rise in car use. The Mediterranean countries would also miss 
their targets unless they reined in their energy and transport 
sectors, Bradley. 

OPEN MARKETS 
But trends in emissions will not be determined solely by policies 
directly aimed at complying with Kyoto, analysts said. The IEA's 
Baron said one of the most important factors will be the current 
liberalisation of energy markets in the bloc. By prising the gas 
and electricity markets away from state-owned monopolies, EU 
policy aimes to get prices down - and that could mean higher 
consumption. But it could also accelerate a switch to cleaner gas-
fired generation. "It is likely to change emissions one way or 
another, but the effects are uncertain," Baron said. 

Taxes are one way of discouraging emissions, but the idea of 
harmonised EU-wide energy taxes has so far rejected. Tax measures 
can be vetoed by just one member state. Alternative policies such 
as requiring companies to use a certain proportion of energy from 
renewable sources, voluntary agreements with car manufacturers to 
improve energy efficiency of new vehicles and emissions trading 
schemes - all policies in place or on the way - could bring down 
emissions, Baron said. 

17) GREEN POWER TAKES TO THE STAIRS
Financial Times
May 21 2001 
Internet:
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3M22NJ0NC
&live=true&tagid=YYY9BSINKTM&useoverridetemplate=IXLZHNNP94C

The contribution of the vacuum cleaner to global warming has been 
overlooked by environmentalists. While power stations that burn 
fossil fuels and spew out greenhouse gases find themselves 
routinely attacked by campaigners, the humble domestic appliances 
that suck up that power have been left alone. 

No longer. Now green power is reaching into the living room, the 
bedroom, and the awkward bit under the stairs. A vacuum cleaner 
being developed by Electrolux in the US will run on a hydrogen 
fuel cell - a power source that generates no direct pollution and 
that promises to be more efficient than conventional energy-
delivery methods. 

The prototype will be shown to the company's sales force in the 
next few months and subjected to consumer focus groups shortly 
afterwards. (Electrolux LLC in the US is adifferent company from 
Electrolux AB of Sweden. It specialises in making vacuum cleaners 
at the top end of the market.) Joe Urso, chief executive of 
Electrolux, says he was moved to experiment with the technology by 
personal and corporate convictions about the importance of 
sustainable energy and environmental concerns: "I have been 
intrigued by renewable energy for some time and wanted an 
opportunity to apply it." 

Apart from its green credentials, the main advantage of the fuel-
cell vacuum is that it will not need to be plugged into the 
electric mains. Instead, the fuel cell, weighing not much more 
than 500g and capable of powering the cleaner for several hours of 
use, will deliver 1,000 watts of direct-current electrical power. 
That will free people from the tiresome constraint of having to 
plug and unplug the cleaner as they move around the house or 
office block from room to room. 

"Our research has shown a very strong consumer need for cordless, 
high-power, efficient vacuum cleaners," says Mr Urso. Today's 
cordless models, that Electrolux estimates account for 40 per cent 
of the market, tend to run out of energy quickly, or fail to 
deliver much suction power. Whereas cordless machines are as noisy 
as conventional vacuum cleaners, the fuel-cell models are almost 
silent. More importantly, the fuel-cell cleaners will have a 
retail price similar to that of today's mid-range cleaners, which 
Electrolux markets for $850 (590). Jack Harrod is chief operating 
officer of Manhattan Scientifics, the US technology specialist 
from which Electrolux will license the fuel cell technology. He 
says improved manufacturing techniques mean that the fuel cells 
will work out as cheap as normal motors. 

If the prototype vacuum cleaner makes it to commercial production, 
it will be a great victory for proponents of the fuel cell. The 
technology has been prohibitively expensive up to now because of 
the difficulty of manufacturing the units. For instance, a 
Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel-cell bus is expected to cost about 
E1.25m (765,000) compared with about E250,000 for a standard 
single-deck urban bus. 

Recharging the vacuum cleaner will involve snapping on a new 
container of fuel. The cells will be cylindrical, about 30cm high 
and 10-13cm in diameter. Electrolux will have to arrange for local 
outlets to sell the replacement fuel containers. Hydrogen-based 
fuel cells work by combining hydrogen and oxygen in an 
electrochemical reaction similar to that of a battery. Hydrogen in 
its pure form can be used in fuel cells but the element itself 
does not occur naturally in sufficient quantities. So it has to be 
produced - by processes that could be renewable or based on fossil 
fuels. 

The cells powering the Electrolux cleaners are likely to use 
sodium boro-hydride. This is an innocuous and non-flammable 
substance used today in the manufacture of paper. Ruthenium within 
the cell acts as a catalyst to render hydrogen from the compound 
and the by-product is borax, a chemical commonly used in the 
production of soap. This may either be thrown away or recycled, as 
may the ruthenium. Extracting hydrogen within the cell rather than 
using canisters of pure hydrogen has other attractions. The 
explosive nature of hydrogen has been etched in public memory by 
images of the Hindenberg airship burning in the sky. Although 
hydrogen will be produced in the cells, Mr Harrod insists they are 
perfectly safe, pointing out that we use highly flammable 
substances like propane and butane without unnecessary anxiety. 

Manhattan Scientifics will not stop at vacuum cleaners. The 
company wants to extend the fuel cell to other household 
appliances such as gardening equipment, which today is normally 
powered by small petrol engines or mains electricity. Lawnmowers, 
leaf-blowers and DIY power tools are other prime candidates for 
the fuel-cell treatment. Mr Harrod notes: "Many lawnmowers today 
use dirty and polluting two-stroke engines, but soon these will be 
difficult to use. For instance, in California people will soon be 
prohibited from using them." The development of these products 
depends, however, on the fate of the vacuum cleaner. Mr Harrod 
admits that its commercial success is far from guaranteed: "The 
jury is still out on whether this idea will be supported by users. 
This is a prototype and we don't know yet whether customers will 
find it a strong proposition." 

18) NORD POOL MAY LAUNCH GREEN CERTIFICATES BY AUTUMN 
Reuters
May 23, 2001 
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10924

OSLO - Nordic power bourse Nord Pool may launch in the autumn a 
certificate trading scheme for renewable energy such as wind power 
and biomass, a manager at the exchange said yesterday. "We are 
working with the subject of renewable certificates, so that 
hopefully we can launch something by the autumn," Arne Jakobsen, a 
business development manager at Nord Pool, told Reuters in an 
interview. "But there is a limited market potential. In the end 
you are depending on a consumer who wants to pay more for the 
green power." 

Some countries like Denmark, Sweden and the U.K., however, plan to 
implement national schemes for renewable energy certificates - 
based on obligatory demand - in their efforts to help curb 
greenhouse gas emissions. In Denmark, for example, power consumers 
are obliged to buy 20 percent of their electricity from renewable 
sources by 2003. Nord Pool, the world's first international 
commodity exchange for power contracts, anticipates marketplaces 
for green certificates around Europe prompted by the various 
national schemes. 

"For Nord Pool the Nordic market is a natural first step, because 
we already have a link to the market players," Jakobsen said. "But 
the fact is that liquidity is so limited we have to look at larger 
markets and find links to those markets," he said, referring to 
countries like the UK and Germany. A voluntary Europe-wide 
initiative to implement a Renewable Energy Certificate System 
(RECS) will soon start test trading. 

Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the UK and the 
Netherlands have made commitments to participate in RECS, while 
France was gearing up to join. Nord Pool, among other energy 
exchanges and brokers, has shown interest. 

ONE MEGAWATT HOUR OF POWER A renewable energy certificate could 
represent the environmental value of one megawatt hour of 
electricity generated from the owner of a wind park, for example. 
The actual electricity produced would be sold under normal market 
conditions and sent through the electricity grid, while the 
environmental value of the energy would be placed on an account or 
registry specifying the type. The certificates could be sold to 
distributors who supply end users with a variety of sources of 
electricity, even though the consumers would not necessarily get 
the actual power produced directly from the source. 

The certificate transfered from producer to distributor could be 
used as a reference price, while a financial market could be 
formed by speculating and hedging the future values of the 
certificates, Jakobsen said. 
Brokers have already started to engage in bilateral trading of 
green power certificates. 

Natsource Tullet recently brokered an agreement between Dutch 
multi-utility Nuon and Zurich muncipal utility Elektrizitatswerk 
der Stadt Zurich (EWZ). Yet Jakobsen projected a slow start for a 
market for trading renewable energy certificates. "If we launch a 
product towards this market we would not expect to see it take off 
the next day. We are not dreaming that this would be a big market 
for us," he said. 

19) EUROPEAN ENERGY: A CLEAN AGENDA
CNN
May 18, 2001
Internet:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/05/18/energy.policies/index.html

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Faced with many of the same energy 
dilemmas as the United States, Europeans are taking a different 
tack. The stress on this side of the Atlantic, with few 
exceptions, is on trying to keep energy prices to a minimum, while 
reducing emissions of the Greenhouse gases seen as a primary 
culprit behind global warming. European policy papers are laced 
with references to "clean" and "renewable" energy, alongside 
ambitious targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and phasing 
out forms of energy seen as dirty or inefficient. 

In cases where market imperatives clash with environmental 
concerns, some Europeans - the Dutch, for instance - have proven 
willing to dip a little deeper into their pockets for their 
energy. Against this backdrop, George W. Bush's blueprint for 
averting a "darker future" for America reads like a primer on how 
to destroy decades of shared progress on energy policy. Even the 
most diplomatic reactions betray a hint of consternation at the 
sight of the world's largest and richest energy consumer veering 
so sharply off that course. 

"We are all a little afraid of the future and the Greenhouse 
effect, and each country that goes in the wrong direction, we look 
at that as a problem," said Per Ingvar Sandberg, head of energy 
technology at the SP Swedish National Testing and Research 
Institute, in Boras, Sweden. Sweden is one of several countries in 
Europe that has been struggling to phase out nuclear energy, which 
currently generates about half of the country's electricity. The 
debate over the nuclear phase-out has been stymied, however, by 
problems finding ready, and ecologically acceptable, alternatives. 
Natural gas and coal have been ruled out on environmental grounds, 
according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency. 

Meanwhile, another attractive alternative - using Sweden's rivers 
to generate more hydroelectric-power - is limited by the fact that 
most rivers have already been harnessed to maximum potential, 
according to Sandberg. That leaves wind power and solar energy. 
Yet even if Sweden were to build 2,000 windmills, as one proposal 
suggests, they would still generate only 7 percent of the needed 
electricity, Sandberg said. The Netherlands is grappling with 
similar challenges - made even more daunting by the country's 
strong commitment to environmental integrity. 

The Dutch have committed themselves to reducing Greenhouse 
emissions by 50 million tonnes by 2010. The country has also 
pledged to raise its share of renewable energy resources from 1 
percent in 1995 to 10 percent in 2020. These targets will be 
tackled even as the Netherlands prepares to open its gas and 
electricity sectors to more competition, in 2004. The electricity 
market was opened to competitors in 1998. "The challenge the 
government must now overcome to meet its renewables target lies on 
the supply side," the IEA wrote. 

"It must raise the acceptance of renewable installations in a 
small, densely populated country. Some of the solutions carry 
significantly higher cost and are controversial, such as the off-
shore wind parks now planned in some locations." Ironically, the 
one European country that Bush turned to for inspiration in 
drawing up his energy strategy - France -- is also the one on 
which the U.S. administration has often found itself most at odds. 

The Bush blueprint's emphasis on expanding the use of nuclear 
energy is in line with France's own energy priorities. Nuclear 
energy provides 80 percent of France's energy needs - the highest 
share of nuclear power in the world, according to the IEA. The 
policy, the agency said, is a product of two global oil crises 
that threatened the security of energy supplies that is a hallmark 
of French policy. Nonetheless, France has committed itself to 
scaling down on its use of nuclear power in the near future. 

Denis Clodic, the associate director of the Centre d'Energtique 
in Paris, suggested it was premature to pass judgement on Bush's 
energy proposals. But he expressed surprise at the speed with 
which Bush unveiled the sweeping new energy plans, so soon after 
the U.S. abandoned its commitment to the Kyoto Accord. Clodic said 
Bush appeared very attentive to the wishes of influential people 
around him. "When I hear the succession of declarations from Bush, 
I get the impression that he does what the sponsors and lobbyists 
ask him to do." 

20) CANADA'S FUEL-CELL REVOLUTION
Ottawa Citizen
24 May 2001
Internet: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010524/5043736.html

There is a blackened, partially melted battery cable on display at 
the Ballard Power headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., which history may 
record as the symbolic start of the age of hydrogen and pollution-
free vehicles. Across the foyer there's a dozen handwritten 
letters from openly amazed elementary school children, thanking 
Ballard staff for a recent class visit. One concludes: "I was 
wondering how I could buy stocks in Ballard. P.S. I love your 
car." 

The charred cable and the fan mail neatly sum up how far Ballard 
has come since the moment in 1987 when alarmed, then astounded, 
and finally jubilant researchers watched a fledgling fuel cell 
produce a wire-wilting electrical surge instead of a mere flicker 
on a power meter. Now, there are test cars and 12-metre buses 
running on far more powerful stacks of fuel-cell assemblies. An 
adjacent manufacturing plant is mass-producing them for use in 
portable generators, on-site power plants big enough to run 
hospitals and office towers, transit buses and eventually the 
world's fleet of passenger cars and light trucks. 

Like ingenuity, money is not in short supply at Ballard. Embraced 
by both Bay Street brokers and environmental activists, the 
company has never made a profit or paid out dividends. Yet it has 
some $800 million in cash, thanks to strong stock prices and 
equity infusions from potential beneficiaries like Ford and 
DaimlerChrysler. Ballard seems to have done everything right so 
far -- largely by keeping it simple. That includes the fuel cell, 
and its fuel. There are no moving parts -- no pistons, spark plugs 
or valves controlling split-second compression and combustion 
cycles. 

No toxic cocktail of petroleum, octane enhancers, oxygen boosters, 
chemical detergents, anti-corrosion agents and deadly ingredients 
like toluene, xylene, and benzene flows through it. Instead, only 
pressurized pure hydrogen gas is forced through a maze of grooved 
channels stamped out in plates made from a low-cost graphite 
composite. (See diagram) Sandwiched between another grooved plate 
is a paper-thin membrane, spray-coated with a platinum-based 
chemical catalyst. When the hydrogen molecules contact the 
membrane surface, the protons slip through while the rejected 
electrons race around the membrane to rejoin the protons. 

Ballard has found a way to channel those electrons to make 
electricity. When the PEM (proton exchange membrane) "sandwiches" 
are stacked together by the hundreds, they can produce enough 
juice to move a car or bus at highway speed. The direct elective-
drive systems give instant acceleration and excellent torque while 
eliminating conventional drive trains. The same fuel cells, made 
at the same Ballard plant, can be stacked and scaled to run a 
hospital or office tower, a portable generator, a riding lawn 
mower or snowmobile, or heavy equipment in an underground mine. 
Without harmful tailpipe emissions. Without a sound. 

The components are also totally recyclable. Because the fuel cells 
operate at a mere 80 C, and there are no moving parts, they can be 
retrieved after thousands of hours of use, cleaned, and re-
assembled into new few cells. With a proven power output of 1,310 
watts per litre, Ballard's fuel cell is widely recognized as the 
world leader in the race to find a clean alternative to the 
internal combustion engine. Car makers, public transit agencies, 
utilities and industrial diesel users are beating a path to the 
Canadian companies' door. 

This year, Ballard and Coleman Powermate plan to put their first 
commercial product on the market -- a portable fuel cell generator 
for camping or power tools. Next year, Ballard says, there will be 
fuel-cell powered transit buses. In 2003, it plans to sell mini-
power plants to hospitals and high-tech companies that need 
trouble-free power to make computer components or operate data 
"server farms." By 2005, it predicts, it will begin replacing the 
internal combustion engines in the world's fleet of cars. 

That, fuel cell advocates say, could bring smog-free cities and 
avert catastrophic climate change. Citing recent scientific 
reports on smog and global warming, Ballard president Firoz Rasul 
told the continent's car makers at this year's Toronto auto show: 
"Your industry is undergoing a revolution brought about by fuel-
cell technology. The question you must ask yourselves is: Are you 
a spectator or a player?" But despite the advent of Ballard's 
brilliant fuel cell, and Mr. Rasul's confident words, truly zero 
emission cars are a long way from a done deal. 

That's because it will take billions of litres of hydrogen to 
power a future national fleet of fuel-cell vehicles -- and the 
leading contenders to make that hydrogen are the very fossil fuels 
that cause smog and greenhouse gases. If that happens, those 
pollutants will not disappear -- most will simply be shifted from 
tailpipes to where fossil fuels are extracted and the hydrogen is 
made. 

In fact, some of Ballard's biggest allies are betting heavily on 
just that: 
- Oil companies and car makers like GM are touting under-the-hood 
"re-formers" that would convert ordinary gasoline into hydrogen as 
the car drives down the highway. 
- Vancouver-based Methanex, the world's largest supplier of 
methanol extracted from natural gas, is promoting on-board 
methanol reformers to make hydrogen. DaimlerChrysler is investing 
most of its research money and effort there. 
- Natural gas companies are pushing to make hydrogen at their 
refineries, or at converted retail gas stations in urban areas. 
- Some companies and utilities are pitching plug-in devices that 
would use household electric power from coal-dependent utilities 
such as those in Alberta or the Maritimes to make on- board 
hydrogen for cars. This is rarely mentioned when car makers, 
energy companies and even Ballard executives promote fuel cell 
technology. They stress low tailpipe emissions, and cleaner urban 
air. 

But behind the scenes, these players are moving quickly to shore 
up their market share -- and protect billion-dollar investments in 
auto plants, frontier oil and gas projects, coal deposits and 
generating plants, refineries, pipelines, tanker ships, retail 
fuel networks and gas stations. If they succeed, North America's 
car makers, and the petro-chemical "Carbon Club," will simply put 
a green sheen to business as usual. 

Alberta's Pembina Institute, a respected environmental think-
thank, has produced Canada's first "well to wheels" estimate of 
the pollution impact of hydrogen made from fossil fuels. Using 
industry data, and the exact car model Ballard has used for 
comparing fuel cell performance, the Institute calculated the 
total emissions from five prospective hydrogen supply options. All 
were compared to the benchmark car, which emits 248 kilograms of 
carbon dioxide for each 1,000 kilometres driven on ordinary 
gasoline: 

- A car using grid electric power in Alberta (dominated by coal 
generation) to make hydrogen would emit 237 kilograms of carbon 
dioxide per 1,000 km driven. 
- A fuel-cell vehicle obtaining its hydrogen from an on-board 
gasoline reformer would emit 193 kilograms covering the same 
distance. 
- Vehicles using on-board methanol (extracted from natural gas) 
reformers would emit 162 kilograms per 1,000 km. 
- Vehicles using hydrogen made from natural gas at urban retail 
outlets would emit 80 kilograms per 1,000 km. 
- Vehicles using hydrogen made at large natural gas refineries 
would emit 70 kilograms per 1,000 km. 

The report concluded: "An ill-informed choice of fuel production 
for fuel cell vehicles could lead to only modest greenhouse gas 
emission reductions -- in the order of 10 per cent -- a tragic 
squandering of opportunity. An informed decision could lead to 
huge emission reductions." The report generally found that most 
emissions from fossil-fuel generated hydrogen simply shifted from 
the tailpipe to "upstream" production plants, and that the 
gasoline and methanol on-board reformers also produced under-the-
hood emissions. 

Hydrogen made from natural gas at regional refineries or urban 
retail outlets reduced total pollution by about 70 per cent. 
Methanol made from natural gas would produce twice those 
emissions. Hydrogen produced from coal-dependent utilities like 
those in Alberta, the Maritimes and Ontario would reduce 
greenhouse gases by a mere 11 kilograms per 1,000 km driven, while 
increasing power plant emissions of smog pollutants and heavy 
metals such as mercury and arsenic. 

The report did not compare these pollution emissions to those of 
hydrogen made from renewable energy sources, such as hydro-
electric sites, windfarms, landfill gas, ethanol derived from 
grains or wood, or dedicated solar generating plants. All are 
technically feasible, and would bring total pollution to near 
zero. Hydro-electric plants have produced hydrogen for more than a 
century by electrolyzing ordinary water. B.C. and Quebec could 
make vast amounts -- and vastly more profits -- by making hydrogen 
from the bulk power currently exported to the U.S. 

Large wind farms in Alberta and the Gaspe region in Quebec could 
also make hydrogen and bottle it for use as a mobile fuel, while 
cities could convert methane (a potent greenhouse gas) escaping 
from landfill sites into vehicle fuels. This would bring the 
biggest pollution reductions per litre of hydrogen, and per dollar 
invested. The Pembina pollution rankings, which are consistent 
with similar U.S. studies, have been all but ignored in the race 
to retain market share in the pending hydrogen energy economy. 
Most energy and auto industry players agree that a profound 
shakedown is imminent, and that only one dominant hydrogen supply 
infrastructure will emerge for North America's vehicle fleet. 

The favoured option of car makers like GM and oil companies seems 
to be on-board reforming of ordinary gasoline into hydrogen. That 
would require the least re-tooling of billion-dollar auto plants 
and maintain gasoline sales, while passing on the costs of the 
fuel cell and reformer technology to new vehicle purchasers. The 
pollution reductions would be meagre, but this option has a huge 
strategic advantage: the gasoline supply network is already in 
place. 

Methanex and allies like Petro-Canada are negotiating technology 
and fuel supply deals to carve out a market share based on 
methanol extracted from natural gas. It would produce twice the 
emissions of a natural gas refinery used to produce hydrogen, and 
there is virtually no methanol retail system in place. Yet it is 
easily transportable, and can produce more aboard-the-car hydrogen 
per litre than gasoline. Methanex claims it can be sold for the 
same wholesale price as gasoline. "We're in a partnership with 
Ballard and Methanex to look at methanol," says Petro-Canada 
executive Greta Raymond. "It wouldn't be our plan to manufacture 
methanol -- we're in the fuel distribution business. We can get 
what Methanex would make to the Ballard fuel cells in cars." 

Companies such as Toronto-based Stuart Power are promoting plug in 
devices that can convert utility electric power into hydrogen for 
vehicle fuel cells. They can create instant hydrogen, anywhere, 
anytime. However, retail power costs tend to be far higher than 
natural gas or gasoline, and if the utilities use coal, the cars 
would effectively be running on the dirtiest fossil fuel. This 
option would also require on-board hydrogen tanks, which are both 
heavy and costly. 

Hydrogen re-formed from natural gas at urban outlets is by far the 
most promising option for the fast advent of fuel cells and 
reducing total pollution. The infrastructure already exists to 
bring natural gas to thousands of factories, commercial buildings 
and gas stations. On-site reformers, which are now available, can 
"strip" out the hydrogen for vehicle use. They could also provide 
electricity, and building heat and hot water. This natural gas 
option would give the biggest bang for the fuel cell buck, with 
the lowest emissions. The main obstacle is the expected cost and 
weight of hydrogen tanks for vehicles. 

The Pembina report concludes: "The decentralized natural gas 
reforming system poses the fewest technical challenges and is 
expected to result in the most cost-effective hydrogen production 
system. This process has the potential to reduce life-cycle 
greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 per cent, compared with 
gasoline-powered conventional internal combustion engines." 
Ballard fuel cells, company officials say, are "fuel agnostic": 
they do not care how the hydrogen is made as long as it is 100 per 
cent pure when it meets the PEM membranes. 

But that hardly squares with Mr. Rasul's warnings about smog and 
greenhouse gases. The company seems poised to adopt a fuel cell 
system determined by price, market-share and profits for its 
partners, rather than pollution reductions. "The fuel cell drive 
will guide us to the age of sustainable mobility. We bet on 
methanol for passenger cars," said Dr. Ferdinand Panik, the head 
of DaimlerChrysler's fuel cell division and CEO of Ballard 
affiliate XCELLIS, while announcing last year an alliance with 
Methanex, BP (the world's second largest oil company), and 
chemical catalyst producer BASF. 

"Today's distribution system can be adjusted in a cost-effective 
way to accommodate methanol, including the future option of 
production from renewables. In a strong alliance, we are now 
heading for the market entry of this technology." Methanex 
accounts for about one quarter of world methanol production and 
sales. Most of it is used in the petrochemical sector, or as a 
gasoline additive. None of it is produced from renewable energy 
sources; the company has no such production plants under 
development. 

Ron Britton, the company vice-president of emerging energy 
applications, says fuel cells will allow Methanex to enter an 
entirely new global market: fueling millions of vehicles. "We 
think methanol is an outstanding choice for fuel cells in the 
future. Petro-Canada is one of Canada's largest retailers of 
fuels. That's how we can get it to the customer. "It is fully cost 
competitive with gasoline today. But there is no infra-structure 
in place. So that's the key underpinning of the alliance with 
Petro-Canada. And Ballard has its own (methanol) reformer 
technology." 

Ironically, if methanol becomes the dominant energy source for 
hydrogen in Canada, environmentalists and Alberta Oil Patch 
producers may find themselves fuming at a common enemy: cheap 
methanol exports made from natural gas fields in the Middle East 
and Chile. Methanex closed its Kitimat methanol plant (supplied by 
western Canadian natural gas) a year ago, and it operates only the 
last of three small refineries in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Most of 
its methanol is produced in the Middle East, Chile, New Zealand 
and Texas. It has a new plant planned for Australia. 

"We can access 'stranded gas' around the world," says Mr. Britton. 
"Our operation in Chile is a perfect example. It's down in the 
farthest tip of South America. There's no people, but a vast 
amount of cheap natural gas. So we can convert it into methanol 
and ship it (by tanker) to where natural gas is very expensive -- 
five times or six what we pay for it. Then it will be converted to 
hydrogen. That's a head-to-head battle methanol will win." 

21) DUTCH WIND PROJECT TO HELP POLAND CURB POLLUTION 
Reuters
May 22, 2001 
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=10908

WARSAW - The Netherlands plan to offer 55 million euro ($48 
million) to Poland to build wind turbines to help reduce the 
country's dependence on air-polluting coal energy, the Polish 
environment ministry said yesterday. The two countries will give 
the project to build 30 turbines in northwest Poland by 2003 the 
final go-ahead within days. 

"This project will enable us to reduce the emission of greenhouse 
gases...and more importantly bring us closer to European Union 
norms," Jacek Jaskiewicz, a senior ministry official said after 
meeting Dutch trade minister Gerrit Ybema. 
Poland, expected to join the EU around 2004, has asked the Union 
for leniency on environmental issues during its accession talks. 
The formerly communist country's smokestack industries can seldom 
afford costly environmental investments. In order to bring 
environmental protection to EU norms, Poland will need to spend up 
to 40 billion euros on environmental measures. 

22) MASSIVE PLANTATION TO BRING DOWN HYDERABAD TEMPERATURE 
The Hindu
17 May 2001
Internet:
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2001/05/18/stories/0418403m.htm

HYDERABAD, MAY 17. Afraid to step out in the scorching heat? Well, 
with the sun blazing and the mercury levels shooting up, 
Hyderabadis are facing this ordeal every summer. Perhaps, after a 
few years the sun might not be that blistering in the city, if the 
grandiose efforts of the State Government to reduce the city's 
temperature takes a shape. The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad 
is working on a `Hyderabad Micro Climate Project' that aims at 
bringing down the temperature by two to three degrees at least. 
The project envisages to create a forest like atmosphere in the 
city by going for massive plantation. For this purpose the 
Government has identified several institutions which have large 
space. These include defence establishments, national science 
laboratories, big industries and open areas. 

A presentation was made to the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu 
Naidu, by the MCH Commissioner, Dr. P.K. Mohanty, recently that 
was appreciated by Mr. Naidu. According to Dr. Mohanty, the idea 
germinated after the positive results of the Neeru-Meeru programme 
that has apparently increased the water table in several parts of 
the State. "We thought why not implement this plan for the city to 
bring the down the temperatures after seeing the success of Neeru-
Meeru", Dr. Mohanty said. 

The impetus to the project came from the United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID), which has chosen Hyderabad as 
one of the few places in the world where it is planning to take up 
programmes to prevent global warming. A team of USAID which 
visited the city a few months ago met the MCH Commissioner in this 
regard. 

Dr. Mohanty, who is in possession of a letter from the USAID, 
sustained efforts were needed to realise the dream. Saying that it 
would take at least 10 years for positive results, he stated as a 
first step about 200 places would be `forested' this year. And 
every year, 100 more places would be added. Trees like peepal, 
banyan, neem and tamarind would be planted massively. The MCH is 
also planning to constitute micro climate societies. Membership 
would be provided for those coming up with massive plantation. The 
corporation would provide all the technical assistance. "The idea 
is to bring back the average temperature of Hyderabad to the good 
old 35 to 37 degree Celsius," officials explained. 

23) IT GETS 78 MILES A GALLON, BUT U.S. SNUBS DIESEL
New York Times
May 27, 2001
Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/27/business/27DIES.html

FRANKFURT, May 26 - To judge by the mileage it can get, the Audi 
A2 sounds like just the kind of exotic hybrid-fuel car that 
President Bush would want to promote with his new energy plan. The 
sporty new four-door compact has a top speed of 100 miles an hour. 
It can travel 78 miles on a single gallon of fuel and emits fewer 
"greenhouse" gases than almost any other vehicle on the market. 
Yet the A2 has at its core a technology that generates scorn in 
the United States: the diesel engine. 

The A2 is part of a powerful movement in Western Europe, where 
gasoline prices are often three times what they are in the United 
States. Diesel engines burn as much as 30 percent less fuel than 
gasoline engines of comparable size, and they emit far less carbon 
dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which have been implicated in 
global warming. After being disparaged for years because they were 
noisy, smelly, smoke-belching and sluggish, a new generation of 
much cleaner, more nimble diesel-powered cars is suddenly the 
height of fashion in Europe. Diesel engines powered 32.3 percent, 
or nearly one-third, of all new cars sold in Europe last year, 
compared with 21.7 percent in 1997. Analysts predict the share 
will rise to at least 40 percent by 2005. 

The contrast with the United States could not be more stark. Fewer 
than 1 percent of new American cars have diesel engines. And the 
gap is likely to widen, because American antipollution regulations 
severely restrict the sale of diesel engines, and American 
environmental groups are adamantly opposed to relaxing them. 
European environmentalists, while pressing for tougher standards, 
are far more accepting of the new diesel technology. 

A report commissioned by Congress and being prepared by a panel of 
the National Academy of Sciences bluntly suggests that the United 
States may be missing a big chance. According to a person familiar 
with the draft report, which is due in July and is being prepared 
with considerable secrecy, the panel will suggest that "the 
surest, fastest way to improve the fuel efficiency of the American 
fleet would be to allow diesels to be a greater part of the 
landscape." President Bush has said that he is waiting for the 
report before deciding what, if any, changes to make in American 
fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles.

But the panel is not expected to call for a change in the 
environmental rules. The person close to the panel said a shift 
toward diesel would require "gigantic" investment and "would 
probably be a foreign- dominated technology." Harry Pearce, a vice 
chairman of General Motors until Friday, when he becomes chairman 
of its Hughes Electronics unit, said the company had no intention 
of investing in more diesel engines for the American market unless 
the air pollution rules change. "We're denying ourselves the 
largest incremental step we could take" to reduce American 
emissions of global-warming gases, he said.

In Germany, home of Mercedes and Porsche and unlimited speeds on 
the autobahn, the average new car has improved its fuel efficiency 
steadily since 1990 and now gets about 32 miles a gallon. The 
average diesel car gets about 40 miles a gallon. By contrast, the 
average efficiency of new vehicles in the United States has 
deteriorated steadily over the period as ever more sport utility 
vehicles have been sold, and was just 24.5 miles a gallon last 
year. By all accounts, diesel technology has made a series of 
major advances in the last 10 years. The days are long gone when 
diesel engines spewed black smoke. The newest engines are almost 
as quiet and smooth as their gasoline rivals, and the telltale 
metallic knocking sounds have almost disappeared in some cars. 

Performance has also improved. The newest generation of pump-
injected and "common rail" diesels offer better torque and 
acceleration than comparable-size gasoline- powered cars. "The 
performance is fantastic," said Paul Schrder, a German physical 
therapist who is trading his old Audi gasoline car for a diesel- 
powered A2. "My main goal was to save on fuel expenses. But I love 
to drive, and I wanted a car that would be fun. This car has great 
acceleration, and it is very agile. It really is a lot of fun." 
Mr. Schrder calculates that he will cut his monthly fuel bill by 
about half, partly because diesel fuel is cheaper and partly 
because of the new car's extraordinary mileage. 

Engines emit carbon dioxide and other gases implicated in global 
warming in direct proportion to the amount of diesel or gasoline 
they burn, so vehicles with more efficient diesel engines emit 
less of these gases. And today's diesel engines produce far fewer 
tiny soot particles than just seven years ago. As a result, 
European environmentalists and government officials have been much 
more comfortable with diesels than their American counterparts. "A 
liter of diesel takes one farther and produces fewer greenhouse 
gases," said Albrecht Schmidt, a top expert on energy issues for 
Germany's Green Party. "The big problem with diesel is the small 
particulates, but we think that problem can be solved with new 
particulate filters."

American environmentalists remain highly critical. "Diesel is the 
quick and dirty way to increase fuel economy," said Daniel Becker, 
the director of energy and global warming policy at the Sierra 
Club. "As long as we have other technologies that are clean, I 
don't see the point in pproducing carcinogenic soot." Differences 
in attitudes among environmentalists are reflected in the 
stringency of air pollution rules, with European regulators giving 
fairly lenient treatment to diesels while American regulators have 
virtually banned them.

Stringent air pollution rules for diesel engines were issued with 
virtually no warning by the California Air Resources Board in late 
1998, and will take effect in the 2004 model year. The decision 
was made by the board itself, a group of political appointees, 
many of whom were about to leave office because their patron, Gov. 
Pete Wilson, a Republican, was retiring. The board's technical 
staff had recommended more lenient standards, but at its final 
meeting, with no staff analysis, the board adopted stricter rules 
with little discussion. The rules were chosen without 
consideration for the ramifications for global warming; California 
regulators say that is an international issue outside their 
purview.

The Environmental Protection Agency traditionally copies 
California's air pollution rules and did so for the diesel rule in 
late 1999. The agency's decision, which also takes effect in the 
2004 model year, came despite heavy federal subsidies by the 
Energy Department and the Transportation Department for the 
production of prototype vehicles with hybrid engines that could 
run on either diesel fuel or electricity. General Motors, Ford and 
DaimlerChyrsler each completed diesel- electric hybrid cars in 
early 2000 that could get 80 miles to the gallon, but have largely 
abandoned these projects because of the new air pollution rules. 
They are now struggling to catch up with Toyota and Honda in the 
production of hybrid vehicles that use electric power to improve 
the overall fuel efficiency of vehicles with gasoline engines.

At the same time, compared with Europe, the United States has much 
dirtier diesel fuel - used by heavy trucks and in a slightly 
different form, as home heating oil - with far higher levels of 
sulphur. The American oil industry, much more influential than 
Europe's oil industry because the United States produces a lot of 
oil, has lobbied successfully to prevent rules requiring cleaner 
fuel to take effect until June 2006. In France, more than half of 
all new cars sold are powered by diesel engines. "Diesels are 
trendy," said Thierry Dombreval, senior vice president for 
marketing at Renault. "The customers for diesels are younger and 
more affluent, and those are the people who are trendsetters." 

BMW and Mercedes are selling diesels in nearly half of their most 
expensive cars. The waiting period for the diesel version of the 
Mercedes sport utility vehicle is 12 months, which is three months 
more than for the gasoline version. Diesel currently sells at an 
average of $1.45 a gallon in the United States, compared with 
$1.70 for gasoline, but diesel prices sometimes rise above 
gasoline prices in winter when refineries produce heating oil 
instead of diesel. In most European countries, diesel is at least 
20 percent cheaper than gasoline because of tax treatment.

A leading reason for Europe's boom in diesel-powered cars is their 
tax treatment. Most European countries impose much higher 
"ecology" taxes on gasoline than diesel fuel, mainly because 
governments want to avoid damaging commercial truckers. In the 
United States, the image of diesel cars has never recovered from 
the damage done in the early 1980's when automakers, responding to 
sharp rises in oil prices, raced to introduce such models on a 
large scale without working out the technical glitches first. "We 
put some vehicles out there in the marketplace that, independent 
of the emissions and fuel economy, just didn't work very well," 
Mr. Pearce of G.M. said.

In Europe, both Ford and G.M., which have been producing cars 
there for decades, lost significant market share because they 
failed to recognize the coming popularity of diesels years ago. 
Today, both companies are racing to catch up. "I believe it is 
just a matter of time before the United States comes around to 
diesel," said David W. Thursfield, chief executive of Ford of 
Europe. "The technology has moved ahead so much. Fifty miles to 
the gallon is normal, and you don't even know you are driving a 
diesel."

24) FESTIVAL FORECASTS CHANGE IN WEATHER REPORTS 
CBC
May 27 2001
Internet:
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/05/27/weather_010527

MONTREAL - Some delegates to an international weather festival say 
it's time TV weather forecasters started talking about some 
serious subjects on the air. They say problems like global warming 
have changed the nature of their jobs. In the past, many 
announcers admit that they've concentrated on presenting 
statistics. They've also spent time coming up with wisecracks when 
talking about whether it's going to rain or snow tomorrow. But 
weather experts now say forecasters must play a bigger role in 
educating people about changes to the climate. 

About 120 delegates from 65 countries came to Montreal on the 
weekend for the 11th annual International Weather Festival. The 
event was created in 1991 by Francois Fandeux, a former TV weather 
forecaster, in France. The festival attracts meteorology buffs 
from around the world - including scientists and journalists. 
Fandeux, now a reporter who covers environmental issues, says it's 
crucial for weather forecasters to talk about more than changing 
cloud formations 

See also-
Montreal Gazette:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/pages/010527/5061404.html

25) TREE PLANTING WARNING OVER GLOBAL WARMING
BBC News
23 May, 2001
Internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1347000/1347068.stm

Hopes of using forests to tackle global warming - by storing 
excess carbon - have received a setback. Researchers in the US are 
shedding doubt on how effective trees are in absorbing carbon 
dioxide (CO2) and then releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. 
And they say they have identified factors that limit the ability 
of these natural "sinks" to soak up CO2. Their findings could have 
huge implications for attempts to tackle climate change. The US 
and its supporters currently believe sinks can reduce CO2 levels 
significantly. 

The researchers, whose work is reported in the journal Nature, 
looked at the growth rate of a plantation of loblolly pines on an 
experimental plot belonging to Duke University, North Carolina, 
US. They found that trees growing in air enriched to contain about 
0.06% CO2, considerably more than the current 0.036%, increased 
their growth rate for only three years, before resuming their 
normal rate. 

Nitrogen's importance 
What the researchers found limited the trees' capacity to respond 
to carbon fertilisation was a shortage of other nutrients, 
especially nitrogen. The availability of water was also important. 

Forests need more than carbon to grow fast
When they made nitrogen available, the results were impressive. 
They write: "In two forest experiments on maturing pines exposed 
to elevated atmospheric CO2, the CO2-induced biomass carbon 
increment without added nutrients was undetectable at a 
nutritionally poor site, and the stimulation at a nutritionally 
moderate site was transient, stabilising at a marginal gain after 
three years. 

"However, a large synergistic gain from higher CO2 and nutrients 
was detected with nutrients added. "This gain was even larger at 
the poor site (threefold higher than the expected additive effect) 
than at the moderate site (twofold higher)." 

Foliage uptake 
Another group of researchers examined the same forest plots to see 
how effective the leaf-litter layer and soil were at absorbing 
CO2. They found that nearly half the carbon uptake went into 
short-lived parts of the trees, mainly foliage. The total amount 
of litter did increase in a carbon-enriched atmosphere, but the 
rate at which it broke down also increased. And the carbon then 
went back into the atmosphere rather than into the soil. 

They say: "We report a significant accumulation of carbon in the 
litter layer of experimental forest plots after three years of 
growth at increased CO2 concentrations. "But fast turnover times 
of organic carbon in the litter layer (of about three years) 
appear to constrain the potential size of this carbon sink. 

Reliance on sinks 
"Given the observation that carbon accumulation in the deeper 
mineral soil layers was absent, we suggest that significant, long-
term net carbon sequestration in forest soils is unlikely." 

Forest floors retain little carbon
The November 2000 international climate talks in the Dutch 
capital, The Hague, were meant to finalise the workings of the 
global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol. But they ended in 
failure, with the role of carbon sinks one of the main sticking 
points. The US and the other members of the so-called Umbrella 
Group (Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Norway, New Zealand 
and Russia) wanted to rely considerably on sinks in meeting their 
Kyoto targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that may 
be warming the global climate. 

The European Union and others opposed this, arguing that open-
ended use of sinks to absorb CO2 could allow countries to avoid 
making any actual emission cuts at all. In terms of international 
diplomacy that argument appears academic, because of President 
Bush's insistence that the US will not implement the protocol 
anyway. But for the scientists and policymakers who are seeking 
practical ways of limiting what they see as the human contribution 
to climate change, it remains important. If sinks can help to 
absorb worthwhile amounts of carbon, many people will be very 
relieved. On this evidence, it is far from certain that they can. 

See also--
CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/05/23/forest.carbon.ap/index.html
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/science/24FORE.html
SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0105/24/world/world7.html
Reuters:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010523/sc/environment_sinks_dc_1.html

26) EXPLORER SAYS ARCTIC ICE THINNING NOTICEABLY
New York Times
May 27, 2001
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-environment-w.html?search
pv=reuters

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The ice sheets covering the Arctic seas have 
thinned noticeably over the last seven years, most likely as a 
result of global warming, said a Norwegian explorer who has just 
skied alone across the top of the world. Boerge Ousland, speaking 
after an 82-day trip in which he traveled 1,300 miles from the 
northern tip of Russia to the North Pole and then down to Canada, 
said on Sunday he had seen other evidence which hinted strongly at 
the effects of climate change. The 38-year-old explorer, holder of 
four long-distance polar skiing records, measured the ice 
thickness as part of a study by the Norwegian Polar Institute. He 
made similar measurements on a trek from Russia to the North Pole 
in 1994.

``The ice toward the North Pole seems to be much thinner than 
normal and this made it much more broken so that the conditions 
were much more difficult than they had been in 1994 ... at around 
87 degrees North it was up to a meter thinner,'' Ousland said. ``I 
think personally that things are happening with warming ... that 
the ice is getting thinner and there is less ice,'' he told 
reporters during his first meeting with the media since reaching 
Ward Hunt Island in Canada's Arctic on Wednesday.

Officials with the expedition said the ice that Ousland had 
measured during the trip ranged from two feet to six feet in 
depth. Many scientists believe that increasing emissions of 
greenhouse gases -- caused by burning fossil fuels -- are 
contributing significantly to global warming. Earlier studies 
showed the Arctic sea ice had thinned over the last 30 years or so 
to six feet from 10 feet and had shrunk by around six percent 
since 1975. Ousland said he had noticed other distinct changes in 
the Arctic since 1994, including a much greater number of polar 
bears closer to the North Pole.

POLAR BEARS PROLIFERATING
``I saw between 50 and 60 polar bear tracks on the Russian side. 
In 1994 I saw two tracks, so that's a big, big change,'' he said. 
One explanation could be that thinning ice meant the bears needed 
to travel further to hunt seals, he added. At one point the 
explorer was almost ambushed by a female polar bear and her two 
cubs but managed to scare them off with a warning shot from his 
revolver. Ousland said he had also been startled to see large 
pieces of driftwood from Siberia very close to the North Pole, 
another possible indicator that the ice was much thinner than 
usual.

``I saw big logs standing straight up, like poles, with roots and 
everything. I also saw sand from riverbeds on (pieces of) ice 
which probably came from the coast of Russia,'' he said. In 1990, 
Ousland and a colleague were the first people to ski unaided to 
the North Pole and in 1994 he repeated the feat by himself. In 
1996 he became the first person to ski solo to the South Pole and 
a year later he became the first to cross the Antarctic continent 
unaided and alone.

But the goal of his latest trip -- to become the first man to ski 
across the Arctic unaided -- died on the third day when his sledge 
broke and a new one had to be airlifted to him. ``This was a big, 
big mental stress and for me it was actually a victory to actually 
keep on going,'' he said.

Ousland lost 37 pounds during his trek despite a diet of 7,000 
calories a day and is still in pain from ``pretty bad'' frostbite 
in both thighs. During his trek he averaged about 10 hours of 
skiing a day, dragging a sled which weighed 360 pounds at the 
outset. Ousland said he had been shocked by the death of Japanese 
Polar explorer Hyoichi Kohno, who drowned after plunging through 
thin ice in the Canadian Arctic earlier this month. ``It was a big 
stress for me because I was thinking about all the times I have 
had close calls on thin ice and how thin the line is between life 
and death when you are going on solo expeditions out there,'' said 
Ousland, who at one point was just 1.2 miles from where Kohno 
died.

See also
CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/05/28/warming.explorer.reut/index.h
tml

27) DESERTS OF THE FUTURE
Moscow Times
May. 23, 2001. Page 10 
Internet: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2001/05/23/006.html

In a previous article for The Moscow Times, I considered the long-
term impact of global warming in Russia's Far North. In the north, 
the permafrost will melt and be transformed into a sea of mud. The 
long-term impact of global warming in the southern parts of the 
formerly Soviet region promises to be no less catastrophic. Let us 
start with the steppe zone of southern Russia, Ukraine and 
northern Kazakhstan. This zone already suffers badly from lack of 
moisture, which exacerbates the erosion and salinization of the 
soil. Thus of Kazakhstan's 35 million hectares of arable land, 18 
million are already dangerously eroded and 8 million are saline. 
In the worst affected areas, such as the republic of Kalmykia, 
desertification is far advanced. Lack of moisture is even more 
acute in central and western Kazakhstan and in Uzbekistan and 
Turkmenistan, where 3 million to four million hectares are lost to 
the desert each year. Historically, these processes have been 
primarily due to extremely poor management of land and water 
resources - inefficient irrigation, deforestation, overgrazing, 
the tilling of marginal land and so on. However, climate change is 
already making matters much worse and will continue to do so in 
the future. 

Global warming, by definition, means higher temperatures. The hot 
and dry summer of 1999 - when in southern Russia temperatures 
topped 40 degrees Celsius - that wreaked havoc on the harvest was 
a harbinger of things to come. But heat is not the only problem. 
Even more serious is drought. In 2000, Karakalpakstan and Mongolia 
suffered their most devastating droughts in living memory. Global 
warming in the former Soviet Union is accompanied by a 
redistribution of precipitation: The south gets drier and the 
north gets wetter. 

That, of course, is a general tendency. Water will not be receding 
everywhere in the south. The Caspian Sea is a major exception to 
the overall pattern. Nobody understands just what makes the 
Caspian tick. Until recently, the level of the sea was rising, 
threatening to flood low-lying coastal areas, especially in 
Turkmenistan. Scientists cannot exclude the possibility that this 
tendency may resume and worsen. 

The Caspian thus stands in sharp contrast to its neighbor to the 
east, the Aral Sea, which is fast drying up - a fate that also 
awaits other inland water bodies of the south, such as Lake 
Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan and Armenia's Lake Sevan. The 
Caspian is protected from desiccation by the Volga River, which 
empties into it water originating in areas of higher precipitation 
to the north. 

Nevertheless, almost all of Central Asia's water comes not from 
the north or west, but from the east and south-east - from the 
rain, snow and ice of the high mountains of Kyrgyzstan, 
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and southeastern Kazakhstan. The 
mountain waters flow through tributaries to the great twin rivers, 
the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and these rivers in turn - or 
what little is left of them after evaporation and cotton and rice 
irrigation have taken their toll - feed the Aral.

How does global warming affect this hydrological system? It might 
be expected that the flow of water would progressively decrease, 
but that is not what has been happening. On the contrary, the 
1990s saw a rate of flow well above the average for the preceding 
three decades. We can resolve the paradox if we look closely at 
what is going on up in the mountains. According to observations 
taken by Kyrgyz meteorologists in the Alatau range of the Tien 
Shan (Mountains of Heaven), the flow in those rivers that are fed 
by summer rain and the melting of winter snow has decreased 
significantly in recent decades, but this effect has been more 
than compensated for by increased flow in those rivers that are 
fed by runoff from glaciers. Thus average summer temperatures have 
risen and year-round precipitation has decreased, while ice melt 
has accelerated. And the glaciers are shrinking accordingly: The 
area covered by them is steadily contracting, and they are 
increasingly restricted to the highest altitudes.

As the glaciers go on melting, the total flow from the mountains 
into the rivers of the Aral Sea basin will remain high. It may 
even rise further, and places downstream from big glaciers may 
find themselves in peril from summer flooding. But eventually, 
certainly by mid-century, the mountains will be bare and the 
glaciers will be gone. Then Central Asia will face the drought to 
end all droughts - for it is by no means clear what, if anything, 
can bring it to an end.

So in the south as in the Far North, the worst effect of global 
warming is that it makes the ice - the ice of the permafrost and 
the ice of the glaciers - melt. We never realized it, but as it 
turns out we can't get on without ice. Is there anything that can 
be done to avert this future? In view of the inertia inherent in 
global warming, it may already be too late. More detailed 
calculations are needed to judge that. Perhaps sufficiently 
radical action at the global level would make a difference. With 
George W. Bush in the White House, the question seems simply 
rhetorical.

Stephen Shenfield is an independent researcher based in 
Providence, Rhode Island. His latest book is "Russian Fascism: 
Traditions, Tendencies and Movements." He contributed this comment 
to The Moscow Times.

28) AMPHIBIAN DECLINES LINKED TO CLIMATE CHANGE
ENN
May 22, 2001
Internet:
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/05/05222001/frograin_42935.asp

It has been one of the biggest biological mysteries of the past 30 
years. Beginning in the late 1980s, scientists began to notice a 
rapid drop in amphibian populations throughout broad regions 
around the world, including Central America, North America and 
Australia. Over the past decade there have been documented 
declines in more than 200 species, and about 20 species are 
presumed to have gone extinct. While no single cause has been 
identified to explain this large-scale phenomenon, a number of 
factors have been implicated, including habitat loss, disease, 
invasive species and chemical exposure. 

Now a piece of the puzzle has been discovered that might tie 
together all of these declines. For the first time, scientists 
have made a direct link between global warming trends and 
amphibian declines. The findings are published in the April 5 
issue of the journal Nature. 

Following 10 years of study, the research team found a direct link 
between the Southern Oscillation Index, which tracks temperature 
fluctuations including the El Nio warming cycles in the South 
Pacific, and the amount of rain and snow in Oregon's Cascade 
Mountains. Altered precipitation patterns resulted in lower levels 
of water in ponds and lakes, where amphibians lay their eggs. 
"Around the early 1990s, we started to see 80 to 100 percent 
mortality," said lead author of the study Joseph Kiesecker. 

For the declining population of Western toads, shallow ponds 
created a more stressful environment for the young embryos, which 
in turn, made them more susceptible to disease, the researchers 
found. Roughly 80 percent of the embryos that were placed in less 
than 8 inches of water developed infections and died. Yet in eggs 
that were allowed to develop in water deeper than about 22 inches, 
the mortality rate was only 12 percent. 

Increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation caused most of the 
eggs that were laid in shallow depths of water to contract the 
water-mold pathogen, Saprolegnia ferax, which usually only attacks 
organisms that are injured or under stress. A number of other 
pathogens have been identified as a cause of amphibian declines in 
other parts of the world. "Stress-related disease is the one 
consistent factor that may link amphibian deaths worldwide, and we 
have demonstrated that amphibian stress in the Cascades is 
ultimately linked to recent global climate fluctuations," 
Kiesecker said. 

The research provides further evidence for the connection between 
climate and epidemics," said J. Alan Pounds, a biologist at the 
Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve and Tropical Science Center in 
Costa Rica, in a commentary that accompanied the Nature article. A 
number of recent reports that have linked climate change with 
population declines in birds and butterflies. 

"Amphibians could be an important bioindicator species because 
they are particularly sensitive to climate change," Kiesecker 
added. "Many researchers who started trying to solve the puzzle of 
amphibian declines during the past decade now have become even 
more motivated by the feeling that amphibians may be telling us 
something important about the threats to biodiversity on our 
planet." 

In the future, Kiesecker plans to use the Southern Oscillation 
Index to predict, four to six months in advance, of outbreaks of 
amphibian disease at specific locations. "Our research sets the 
stage for other research teams studying amphibian declines to look 
at their sites in a different way," Kiesecker said. "This study 
shows the amazing complexity of biological systems that we will 
need to grasp if we translate global climate change into local 
species loss." 

29) AFRICA MOST THREATENED BY GLOBAL WARMING
AllAfrica.com
May 23, 2001
Internet: http://allafrica.com/stories/200105230380.html

Durban, South Africa--The steady warming of the earth's surface 
temperature has enormous implications for agriculture, the head of 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said today. 
Even a small increase in temperature will mean a decrease in 
agricultural production in many tropical and sub-tropical 
countries, and Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable.

Dr. Robert T. Watson, IPCC Chair, spoke today to hundreds of 
scientists and researchers of the Consultative Group on 
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is holding 
annual meetings in Durban this week. The IPCC's latest assessment 
report projects that the earth's average surface temperature could 
rise by 1.4 - 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5 - 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) 
over the next 100 years. The panel has concluded that this would 
result in:  Severe water stress in the arid and semiarid land 
areas in southern Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe.  
Decreased agricultural production in many tropical and subtropical 
countries, especially countries in Africa and Latin America.  
Higher worldwide food prices as supplies fail to keep up with the 
demand of an increasing population.  Major changes in the 
productivity and composition of critical ecological systems, 
particularly coral reefs and forests.  Tens of millions of people 
at risk from flooding and landslides, driven by projected 
increases in rainfall intensity and, in coastal areas, rising sea 
levels.

"With its low per capita fossil energy use, Sub-Saharan Africa has 
the lowest emissions of the greenhouse gases that are the major 
cause of climate change. Yet Sub-Saharan Africa (along with low-
lying small island states) is the most vulnerable to climate 
change because widespread poverty limits its capabilities to adapt 
to a continuing changing climate," Watson said. "Particularly at 
risk are the arid and semi-arid regions and the grassland areas of 
eastern and southern Africa, and the areas already threatened by 
land degradation and desertification."

At a news conference preceding his presentation, Watson was joined 
by Ian Johnson, CGIAR Chairman and World Bank Vice President and 
Pedro Sanchez, Director-General of the CGIAR's International 
Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kenya and. The news 
conference released the new CGIAR report, The Challenge of Climate 
Change: Poor Farmers at Risk.

"A warmer world will surely impact yields of staple crops, 
increase the incidence of pest attacks, and exacerbate drought, 
all with profound effects on the well-being of small farmers in 
developing countries," Johnson said. "As an international public 
research organization, the CG's challenge is to mobilize the best 
of science for poor farmers at risk."

"International agricultural research can help develop a coherent, 
systemic response to the potential effects of climate change on 
agriculture and play a critical role in helping poor farmers adapt 
to the consequences of climate change and mitigate its deleterious 
effects," said Sanchez, who heads the CGIAR's Inter-Center Working 
Group on Climate Change.

Agriculture is the economic mainstay in most African countries, 
contributing 20 - 30 percent of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa and 55 
percent of the total value of African exports. About 70 percent of 
Africa's poor live in rural areas.

Crop yields and changes in productivity as a result of climate 
change will vary considerably across regions and among localities. 
In the tropics and subtropics, where some crops are near their 
maximum temperature tolerance and where dryland, non-irrigated 
agriculture dominates, yields are likely to decrease even with 
small increases in atmospheric temperature. Overall agricultural 
productivity in Africa could decrease during the next century, 
leading to hunger and malnutrition in vulnerable areas, especially 
in drought-prone regions of Africa.

Climate change's impact on the availability of water in Sub-
Saharan Africa is also of concern to scientists. At present 1.7 
billion people live in areas where water resources are scarce. 
This number is expected to increase to about 5.4 billion over the 
next 25 years. In general, rainfall is projected to increase 
slightly over much of the continent, but a decline in rainfall is 
projected for southern Africa, especially in winter. These changes 
in rainfall and higher temperatures are projected to exacerbate 
water shortages in Southern Africa and in African countries around 
the Mediterranean Sea. The predominance of rain-fed subsistence 
agriculture and, across southern Africa, high dependence on water-
demanding maize means that food security for most of the continent 
is inextricably linked to the amount of rainfall. In dryland 
regions, crop and livestock production are also extremely 
susceptible to seasonal rainfall variability. Increased droughts 
resulting from climate change could seriously impact the 
availability of food, as was the case in the Horn of Africa and 
southern Africa during the 1980s and 1990s.

According to the IPCC, the main challenges facing Africans will 
emanate from tropical storms, floods, droughts, landslides, 
abnormal sea-level rises, and other extreme weather expected as a 
result of climate change. These events will exacerbate problems of 
pollution, sanitation, waste disposal, water supply, public 
health, infrastructure, and production technologies.

The CGIAR is an association of 58 public and private members 
supporting a system of 16 Future Harvest research centers around 
the world. More than 8,500 CGIAR scientists work in more than 100 
countries to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition 
and health, and protect the environment. South Africa has been a 
CGIAR member since 1996.

30) CHANGING CLIMATE LEAVES MIGRATING BIRD BEHIND 
LA Times
May 21, 2001

Changes in the Earth's climate may be especially difficult for 
migratory birds to adapt to, scientists report in last Thursday's 
issue of the journal Nature. That's because the birds can't easily 
alter their migrations to arrive at breeding grounds when food is 
most plentiful. 

Over the last 20 years, spring temperatures in temperate regions 
have slowly risen--and many creatures have responded to the shift 
by breeding earlier. Dutch scientists studied the migratory pied 
flycatcher, which migrates from Africa to Europe, to see how it 
was faring. 

The bird lays its eggs earlier in spring than it used to, but not 
early enough to get its share of the food that's available earlier 
because of warming. The bird doesn't migrate any earlier -- 
possibly because migration timing is biologically "hard-wired." 

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
31) MORE POWER TO US 
Wall Street Journal 
May 23, 2001
Internet: http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=95000515

BY PETE DU PONT 
 
Americans have taken for granted instantaneous and reasonably 
priced energy for more than 50 years. Flip the switch and the 
light or television goes on; turn the knob and the burner lights 
up; stop at the gas station and fill your tank. But as any 
Californian will tell you, that assumption no longer holds. 
California and other places are beginning to run out of 
electricity, the most basic energy resource of all. 

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, energy politics have focused on 
the environment first and the production of energy second. Energy 
use has grown only slightly faster than the population, and per 
capita oil consumption is about what it was then. So is the 
inflation-adjusted price of gasoline. The percentage of disposable 
household income spent on energy has actually declined, to 4.8% 
today from 6% in 1970 (albeit with some ups and downs in between). 
While energy consumption grew 42% over the last 30 years, key air-
pollution emissions have declined 31%. Better technology has made 
energy cheaper for the consumer and better for the environment. 

That's the good news. The bad news is that while we focused on the 
environmental side of the energy equation we badly neglected the 
supply side. Over the last 20 years, energy consumption rose 23%, 
while supply increased only 8%. The numbers for the past 10 years 
are even less encouraging. During that time we used 17% more 
energy than in the previous decade, but energy production only 
rose 2.3%. The rapid expansion of the economy in the 1980s and 
'90s accelerated the demand for energy. 

Demand isn't likely to level off anytime soon. The National Energy 
Policy report the Bush administration released last week projected 
that "over the next twenty years U.S. oil consumption will 
increase by 33 percent, natural gas consumption by well over 50 
percent, and demand for electricity will rise by 45 percent." To 
generate the electricity needed to keep the lights on and the 
computers booted up the report says we will need to build at least 
1,300 and perhaps as many as 1,900 new power plants in the next 20 
years. 

That task is doable--unless we act like Californians 

Oil production presents a problem too. The U.S. is producing 39% 
less oil than it did in 1970. Oil-exploration technology has 
greatly improved, but crude-oil production is down, to 12.6 
quadrillion BTUs in 1999 from 20.4 quadrillion in 1970, according 
to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Half as many oil 
refineries are operating today as were two decades ago; 37 have 
closed down, and not a single new one has been built in 25 years. 
"If it were raining oil," vice presidential adviser Mary Matalin 
says, there still wouldn't be enough refining capacity to turn it 
into the fuel. 

Increasing production of coal, natural gas and nuclear power has 
largely offset the decline in oil production. But coal is dirty 
both to burn and to mine, and natural-gas supplies may not be able 
to keep up with the increase in demand. As for nuclear power, 28 
power plants have shut down in the past 35 years and more than a 
third of those now operating will become obsolete and cease 
operation by 2020, according to the Department of Energy. Given 
the current hostility to nuclear power plant construction, it 
isn't likely any new plants will come online in the next decade or 
two. 

There can be no doubt that the U.S. needs a new energy policy. 
California is the best example of why. While the state's 
electricity demand increased 16% over the last decade, the state 
has permitted no major new power plant construction. Price 
controls have encouraged demand and distorted energy markets. 
Price spikes and rolling blackouts, the baby steps of energy 
rationing, are the result. 

So last week President Bush laid out a strategic energy policy. 
Its objective is to "modernize conservation, modernize our energy 
infrastructure, increase energy supplies, accelerate the 
improvement of the environment, and increase our nations 
security." In a single stroke the president refocused our energy 
policy. The focus is now on conservation and production instead of 
conservation in the place of production. 

As outlined in the plan, the president wants to speed the approval 
for power-plant construction, expedite approvals for refinery 
expansion, drill for more oil, expand natural gas and electricity 
delivery grids, and encourage the building of clean nuclear 
plants. He also wants to encourage energy-efficient products 
(although this may increase their appeal and energy usage), such 
as consumer solar panels, low-income home insulation, hybrid gas-
electric vehicles (an Al Gore idea) and wind energy generation. 

Predictably the greens think this is all wrong. But they are 
suffering an identity crisis. They want electric cars but oppose 
construction of the power plants needed to recharge them. They 
abhor the increasing use of dirty coal-fired generators, but then 
oppose clean nuclear ones--even though one ton of nuclear fuel 
produces the energy equivalent of two to three million tons of 
fossil fuel. They worry about the storage of spent nuclear fuel 
rods--a valid concern--but as nuclear engineer James A. Lake 
recently pointed out in the New York Times, "The total [waste] 
generated by America's 103 nuclear plants during their lifetimes 
could be stacked less than 15 feet high in a space the size of a 
football field." 

More oil drilling? The greens don't want that either. "We are 
never going to drill ourselves out of this hole," says Deborah 
Williams of the Alaska Conservation Foundation, referring to the 
imbalance between America's daily consumption of oil (18.9 million 
barrels a day) and its daily production (6.2 million). 

We certainly won't if we don't begin to drill for more oil and gas 
where we know it exists. It is also certain we cannot ration our 
way to prosperity. So we must begin to increase our supplies of 
energy. The alternative is to cut ourselves off from the 
inexpensive, efficient technology that supports our economic well-
being and has created the backdrop for most of our life 
experiences--from airplanes and telephones to computers and street 
lights, hospitals and dialysis machines to irrigation and farming. 
What could be more massively stupid than that? Cheap power has 
been improving the quality of human life since Thomas Edison 
invented the light bulb in 1879. America needs more energy 
resources to support everything our health and prosperity. The 
alternative is to ration opportunity. 

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of 
the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column 
appears Wednesdays. 

32) WASHINGTON NEEDS TO BE MORE SERIOUS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE 
IHT 
May 18, 2001
Internet: http://www.iht.com/articles/20206.html

By Kazuo Asakai 

PARIS Japan shares the concerns expressed by many other countries 
regarding the United States' recent pronouncement not supporting 
the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol is the only international 
framework we have. It should not be discarded. The Japanese view 
was most recently articulated by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi 
in his policy speech to the Diet on May 8, in which he expressed 
his determination to do his utmost to put the Kyoto Protocol into 
force by 2002. Japan will continue to take every opportunity to 
encourage the United States to return to the protocol, since its 
participation, with its share amounting to nearly a quarter of 
global emissions, is essential for starting meaningful 
international actions against global warming. 
.
One of the reasons cited by the United States for not supporting 
the Kyoto Protocol is the economic costs. The OECD has estimated 
that the costs to the United States of meeting the Kyoto 
requirements amount to approximately 0.16 percent of GDP. This is 
not high compared with the costs to other industrial countries, 
including Japan. Statistics vary depending on models used, but it 
may cost twice as much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Japan 
as it will in the United States. 
.
The United States should note that by making use of the mechanisms 
provided for in the Kyoto Protocol it can achieve the emissions 
reduction commitment in a cost-effective way. According to a 
recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
the cost of complying with the protocol can be halved by fully 
utilizing emissions trading. The rules governing the Kyoto 
mechanisms are still under negotiation. Some countries seek to 
impose rigid limitations. Japan hopes that the outcome of present 
negotiations will allow for flexible utilization of the Kyoto 
mechanisms. 
.
Global warming is not only about sacrifices but also about 
opportunities. Japan's experience in achieving a high level of 
energy efficiency shows that efforts for energy efficiency have 
opened up opportunities for technological innovation and now 
markets. Another reason for the U.S. objection to the Kyoto 
Protocol is that developing countries are not required to assume 
adequate responsibilities. Striking an appropriate balance of 
responsibilities among the developed and the developing countries 
is complex. 
.
Most of the greenhouse gas emissions that accumulated in the last 
century originated in industrialized countries. On a per capita 
basis, emissions by developing countries are only one-20th those 
of the United States and one-10th those of Japan. It is therefore 
not right to expect developing countries to assume the same level 
of obligation. The 1992 Climate Change Convention stipulates that 
responsibilities of individual countries are "common but 
differentiated." 
.
Japan believes that developing countries should assume roles which 
accord with their responsibilities and capabilities. The nature of 
such roles should be determined through the current negotiations. 
At the same time, it is important that developing countries take 
voluntary actions to reduce emissions. Major emitters such as 
China and India are already taking actions to reduce carbon 
dioxide emissions. The Kyoto Protocol will contribute to promoting 
the reduction efforts of developing countries. Opposing the 
protocol for its presumed damage to the U.S. economy could lend 
weight to the argument advanced by some developing countries that 
they are too poor to take action. One must break this negative 
spiral. This is the time for developed countries to take the lead. 
Climate change will not be dealt with meaningfully without a 
substantial contribution by the United States. Japan is counting 
on America, being the global power, to provide leadership to solve 
this serious issue. 
.
For its part, Japan is determined to do its utmost to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions at home and to continue efforts aimed at 
putting the Kyoto Protocol into force by 2002. 
.
The writer is the Japanese ambassador for international economic 
affairs and global environmental affairs. He contributed this 
comment to the International Herald Tribune. 

33) BUSH IS RIGHT TO PUT HIS FOOT ON THE GAS 
Daily Telegraph
20 May 2001
Internet:
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?ac=002830376029449&rtmo=lnFnQAot&atmo
=HHHH22NL&pg=/01/5/20/do03.html

By Mark Steyn

GEORGE W BUSH announced his "national energy policy" on Thursday, 
and it turns out those Europeans who've denounced him as an oil 
industry stooge have underestimated the man: he's also a coal 
industry stooge and a nuclear industry stooge. The Republican 
President's energy policy is to have more oil wells, more gas 
pipelines, more electric grids, more nuclear plants. Oh, and don't 
forget opening up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for 
drilling. At this point in US network news reports, it's customary 
to pause for lyrical footage of the world's largest caribou herd 
gambolling across the tundra on their annual migration. If Bush 
has his way, they'll just have to vacation in Florida like the 
rest of us. 

The reason for the President's new policy is the "crisis" facing 
America. "If we fail to act," he says, "this great country could 
face a darker future, a future that is unfortunately being 
previewed in rising prices at the gas pump and rolling blackouts 
in the great state of California." But the Grand Old Party's plans 
have not met with approval. Bush's energy policy is "a cesspool of 
polluter giveaways", huffs the Sierra Club, North America's 
leading association of yuppie conservationists. "GOP seems to 
stand for Gas, Oil and Plutonium," says Senate Democratic leader 
Tom Daschle. Which prompts the obvious question: what exactly do 
environmentalist Democrats stand for? 

After all, the environmentalist Left is opposed to oil exploration 
in the Arctic because it thinks we should give up our gas-guzzling 
Jeep Cherokees for rinky-dink electric cars. Okay. In that case, 
with all these electric cars, we'll need more electricity, so we 
should build some nuclear power plants. No, sorry, say the 
environmentalists, we can't risk another Three Mile Island. Okay. 
Well, how about coal-fired plants? No can do. Coal's too dirty. 
Greenhouse gas emissions. Okay. You guys are in favour of mass 
transit so let's go back to wood-fired steam trains. A bit 
cumbersome. No, sorry, say the environmentalists. We're opposed to 
logging. We want a ban on forestry work in environmentally 
sensitive areas such as forests. 

This is the genius of the Bush approach. By being in favour of 
everything, he's brilliantly exposed the fact that the other 
side's in favour of nothing. No nukes. No wells. No refineries. No 
exploration. No nothing, no matter how safe, clean and efficient 
the energy industry gets. Thus, the no-policy policy of the 
Clinton Administration these last eight years. 

Between 1990 and 2000 the US economy grew by more than 30 per 
cent. It was absurd to expect the country to be able to absorb 
that growth without any increase in its energy supply, and in 
California the contradictions finally caught up. Which state has 
the most rigorous conservation programme? California. Which state 
has the lowest per capita electricity consumption? California. And 
which state is sitting in the dark waiting for its air 
conditioning to be switched back on? Californians have learned the 
hard way that conservation is not a viable policy for a non-
stagnant economy. In fact, environmentalism isn't even good for 
the environment. Feel-good California-style "conservation" is 
utterly wasteful. Recycling? You could fit a whole century's worth 
of America's garbage in one big square landfill, about 10 miles by 
10 miles. Think of all the man-hours lost to the economy by 
obliging the populace to serve as unpaid municipal garbage 
operatives by rinsing every container and putting their shampoo 
bottles into the box for HDPE2 plastic and their peanut butter 
jars into the box for PETE1 plastic. If all that time and money 
had been devoted to genuine environmental advance, who knows what 
might have been achieved? 

Even at its least destructive, "conservation" is mostly trivial 
posturing. You like solar power? At the moment, it accounts for 
0.1 per cent of US energy production, almost all of which is for 
devices which heat swimming pools. So if there was a tenfold 
increase in swimming pool construction you might be able to get it 
up to 1 per cent, but the only way all those homeowners would have 
the money to build their new pools is through the kinds of 
economic activity which depend on oil, gas and electricity. 

The President made a few soothing noises about conservation: if 
you want to drive an electric car, he won't stop you and he'll 
even give you a tax break on it. But the Administration's real 
views were expressed more caustically in the Vice-President's 
speech in Toronto last month. As Thomas Friedman wrote in The New 
York Times, "Judging from his sneering remarks about conservation, 
Mr Cheney believes that conservation should be a misdemeanour, 
akin to smoking marijuana. Real men drill wells." 

Yes, they do. Because a better word for "energy" is "power", in 
every sense. Without coal to make coke, the 13 colonies wouldn't 
have been able to cast the cannon that helped them win the 
Revolutionary War. Conversely, the President who hectored the 
American people most about conservation came to symbolise a more 
profound lack of power. Last week Jimmy Carter re-emerged to pat 
himself on the back and complain that "it has been more than 20 
years since our country developed a comprehensive energy policy". 
It's true that in 1980 most Americans were agreed on a 
comprehensive multi-stage approach to the country's energy 
situation. Stage 1: Drive to polling station. Stage 2: Vote Jimmy 
Carter out of office. 

Bush and Cheney have no intention of going the same way. You can 
look on America's use of 97 quadrillion BTU in 1999 as a "cesspool 
of pollution" or as the small cost of running the engine of the 
world's economy. Each of those BTUs is generating about twice as 
much GDP as it did 50 years earlier, a tribute to increased energy 
efficiency. But Bill Clinton sat by as petroleum imports overtook 
domestic production for the first time in American history. The 
Department of Energy switched off the lights and went to sleep. 
For eight years, the only exploration and drilling rights were 
those the President exercised on female subordinates. And with 
each passing day the consequences of Clinton's narcissism become 
clearer. Not content with lobbying a rotten egg at John Prescott's 
beloved Kyoto Accord, Bush has gone further and landed a solid 
punch on the entire concept of guilt-trip conservationism, shoving 
it over the wall into the landfill of history. He has come up with 
a plan that starts from a radical proposition: the people are 
entitled to live their lives the way they do and it's time to 
ensure the energy supply needed to support them. 

See also
WSJ: http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/others/?id=95000504

34) GLOBAL WARMING: DOES KYOTO PROTOCOL SUIT DEVELOPING WORLD?
Dawn Pakistan
23 May 2001
Internet: http://www.dawn.com/weekly/health/health.htm#1

By Wasim Wagha

If present emission trends of greenhouse gases continue any 
longer, the average temperature on earth may rise by as much as 
5.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. Greenhouse gases, including 
carbon dioxide, the product of the combustion of fossil fuels like 
coal and oil, many scientists believe, are responsible for the 
accelerated warming of Earth's atmosphere over the century. These 
concerns precipitated in Kyoto Protocol, which required 38 
industrialised countries to cut their emissions of greenhouse 
gases by an average of 5.2 per cent by 2010. While the protocol 
foresaw the eventual inclusion of developing countries in global 
emission regime, some big advocates of the entire scheme 
apparently withdrew their support particularly at a time when US 
refusal came as shock to them. 

Apart from political ambitions behind Kyoto Protocol, a dire need 
arise to manage rise in global temperature. In fact, ever 
increasing earth-temperature embodies serious threats to world 
ecosystem. It will cause more floods and more droughts, 
diminishing agricultural yields and worsening sanitary conditions 
in 21st century. 

Among proposed solutions, (i) capturing carbon dioxide at the 
emission point and diverting it to a safe storage,(ii) or removing 
carbon dioxide already in the upper hemisphere through plantation, 
are the two highly considered options to the environmentalists. 
Ironically, none of these options qualifies for 'cutting 
greenhouse emission' in reality, but a bid to clear the mess 
thereafter tactfully. 

However, industrialised countries do not opt for the first option, 
as it will increase their environmental bill. They rather decide 
on sucking carbon dioxide by simply planting more trees, which is 
in fact cosmetic strive to arrest the pivotal issue generated 
exclusively by the developed world. For instance, per capita 
emissions in rich countries are 20 times more than that of the 
developing countries and almost all the greenhouse gases, 
currently warming the atmosphere, originate in industrialised 
countries. In spite of being the main contributor, most of the 
industrialised countries look reluctant to adopt Kyoto Protocol, 
until and unless developing nations do so. Reason is very simple. 
Most of the carbon saving options that cost between $10-25 per 
tonne of carbon saved in developing countries, can cost up to US 
$200-300 per tonne in the US. 

In order to assist industrialised countries for controlling 
greenhouse emission, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been 
devised, which enables them to buy emission space from developing 
countries. Hence, when industrialised countries abate GHG 
emissions in developing countries, they receive emission reduction 
certificates, which they count towards meeting their targets. 
Kyoto Protocol, by all means, facilitates the industrialised 
countries. 

Since developing countries are not contributing to climate change 
and evident damage, they are not obliged to take part in global 
efforts to solve the problem. Employing environmental science 
stick, industrialised countries, however, argue that global 
warming will affect each part of the world evenly, making the 
developing countries equally vulnerable. 

While this scientific claim itself needs rectification, there are 
indications that developed countries themselves are vulnerable to 
temperature rise. In summer 1994, the temperature in London rose 
from 27 to 30 degrees centigrade after 27 years. 

This sheer increase in temperature proved catastrophic to 
Londoners, who became too irritated to work in that temperature, 
while the temperature at Gwadar or at the Murree hills was the 
same that had been decades ago. 

This negates John Prescot, Deputy PM and US Secretary of State for 
Environment's claim that as the Earth warms up, sea levels will 
rise, disrupting the lives of many millions of people living in 
coastal areas and may even endanger the very existence of some 
island nations. The English, living in coastal areas, and other 
industrialised countries, due to their specific geography and 
ecology, may be vulnerable to global warming, but developing 
countries, due to their own specific geography and ecology, may 
not be. Although, the industrial and vehicular emissions of carbon 
dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, unburned lead and a host 
of hydrocarbons pose potential environmental and health hazards in 
developing countries. 

Air pollution is measured in terms of industrial and vehicular 
emission. According to the data provided by Ministry of 
Environment, air pollution is the primary cause of over 2,000 
deaths each year and nearly 6.4 million cases are reported for 
medical treatment. Carbon dioxide, the most toxic in urban air, 
reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of blood. A continuous 8-hour 
exposure at a value of 8-3 PPM causes temporary impairment of the 
nervous systems and eye-sight. Nitrogen oxide damages lungs and 
its nitrates form acids when combined with moisture in lungs and 
vapors in clouds. Sulphur dioxide can trigger asthma attack. Lead, 
toxic in any form, also poses serious threat to children's 
intelligence and concentration. These gases also impose 
irreversible losses to indigenous ecology in developing countries. 

Hence, instead of acceding to Kyoto Protocol, which has not yet 
been finalised and contains some major loopholes and 
controversies, the developing countries need to devise indigenous 
strategies to check the industrial emissions. Setting National 
Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) in August 1993, was a good 
effort by Pakistan, but influential industry has been successful 
in rendering these standards ineffective. There are two main flaws 
in NEQS: First, 'paying the pollution charge', and second 'self 
monitoring of pollution mess'. 

In 1998, when the industry-government green dialogue on NEQS was 
dead-locked, Pakistan presented the idea of paying 'pollution 
charge' if not complying with one-third of NEQS's parameters i.e. 
16 out of total 48. Industrialists quickly accepted the idea, 
which actually entrusted them with impunity to violate the 
environmental standards, earn huge profits and pay a minor 
pollution charge. Similarly, the industry was asked to introduce 
self monitoring system by submitting monthly, quarterly or 
biannual report to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This 
self monitoring reminds us of a local proverb "a butcher appointed 
a cat to guard his meat". In its present form, the NEQS are too 
favorable to industrialists to bring some measurable change 
towards environmental quality. 

Vehicular emission constitutes 90 per cent of the total air 
pollution. In ideal conditions, vehicle exhaust constitutes water 
and carbon dioxide. But due to low quality imported fuel, the 
automobile exhaust contains a host of poisonous gases. The average 
Pakistani vehicle emits 20 times as much hydrocarbons, 25 times as 
much carbon monoxide and 3.6 times as much nitrous oxide in grams- 
per- km, compared to average vehicle in the US. 

Although, the Ministry of Environment has been trying to reduce 
the vehicular emission, they target only those vehicles which emit 
smoke more than an average vehicle. This is half solution. 
Currently, automobiles are increasing at the rate of 77 per cent 
per decade. In 1980, there were 0.682 million vehicles, which rose 
to almost 2 million in 1990 and 3.2 millions in 1998. According to 
projected estimates, there will be more than 5 million vehicles by 
the end of this year (2001). In this perspective, Kyoto Protocol 
does not suit the objective conditions prevalent in the developing 
world. Neither does it offer comprehensive remedy even to its 
authors because of its political objectives.

35) POWER POLITICS: LOOKING TO WIN THE ENERGY ISSUE
New York Times
May 20, 2001 
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/weekinreview/20BERK.html?searchpv=site
02

WASHINGTON - IN every room at the Holiday Inn Campus in Eau 
Claire, Wis., a sign implores guests to preserve energy by re-
using their towels. But Terri Mertz, the hotel's general manager, 
said that typically guests in no more than five rooms (out of 137) 
do so. "People probably think, 'I'm at a hotel, so they can pay 
for my towels,' " Ms. Mertz said. Therein lies a lesson for 
President Bush and the Democrats, who in releasing competing 
energy blueprints last week each tried to present theirs as the 
responsible approach to the nation's twin desires for affordable 
energy and a clean environment. 

Both parties have commissioned polls that show that Americans 
(particularly prized independent voters) place a far greater 
priority on encouraging conservation than on producing more oil 
and gas. Yet there is a huge gap between what people say they want 
and how they act. In fact, Americans have long resisted taking 
steps in their own lives to reduce energy consumption. This 
contradiction, ambivalence or hypocrisy could provide a political 
opening for either party, especially the Republicans, whose energy 
plan offers only a passing glance at conservation. In the end, Mr. 
Bush may not suffer politically if, deep down, people are loath to 
change their lifestyles. The Democrats, in contrast, are asserting 
that the White House doesn't care about the environment and that 
its policies would force people to curb their energy use - or pay 
higher rates - not because of any crisis but so that oil companies 
could reap greater profits. 

Both sides, then, are seeking to exploit an uncertain electorate, 
an inherently risky game. For Republicans, the challenge is to 
avoid being seen as despoilers of the Earth; the Democrats need to 
protect themselves from being portrayed by Republicans as more 
concerned about championing the spotted owl than people's 
livelihoods. "A large fraction of the American public consider 
themselves to be concerned about the environment," said Cutler J. 
Cleveland, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental 
Studies at Boston University, "yet they also want the freedom to 
behave in ways that are not constrained by the price or cost of 
energy. They are outraged with every nickel-a-gallon increase in 
the price of gasoline."

For generations, Americans have been accustomed to abundant and 
cheap natural resources. Even today, oil and gas are still 
relatively affordable compared both to inflation and to prices 
worldwide. This creates a problem for conservationists because, 
historically, conservation has really worked only when the cost of 
profligacy has hit consumers' pocketbooks. Thus, the Arab oil 
embargo during the Carter administration drove Americans to fuel-
efficient cars only because gasoline shot up in price and often 
was not even available.

For now, despite the specter of rolling blackouts and warnings 
that gas could top $3 a gallon, most people do not seem panicked 
enough to change their ways. In California, however, where there 
is a crisis, two-thirds of the guests at the Westin St. Francis 
hotel in San Francisco are happily re-using their towels at the 
management's request. Absent a crisis, financial incentives can 
encourage conservation. If the Holiday Inn in Eau Claire offered a 
discount for people who re-used their towels - or even a free cup 
of coffee - the response might be better. "Any time you ask people 
to do something new, they have a disincentive to do it," said 
Raymond de Young, an environmental psychologist at the University 
of Michigan. "If you're basically telling people that there's no 
pleasure in what we're asking them to do, people are going to ask, 
`What's in it for me?' And they're going to be afraid they're 
going to be taken for a sucker."

American public planning has also discouraged conservation. For 
example, people might prefer taking public transportation in Los 
Angeles. But if there are no convenient subway or bus lines, what 
choice do they have but to drive? Similarly, people may feel 
embarrassed about driving gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, but 
if the government is afraid of imposing more stringent fuel 
economy standards on them, or placing higher taxes on gas (which 
is far cheaper here than in any European country), why scold their 
owners? In fact, a Transportation Department study made public 
late last week found that the average gas mileage of new vehicles 
in the 2001 model year had slipped back to the level of 1999, 
which was the lowest since 1980.

If anything, postwar America has encouraged energy consumption, 
hence the proliferation of highways, suburbs and automobiles, all 
subsidized. Unlike the Japanese or Europeans, who have limited 
energy reserves and have had no choice but to do things like flick 
off light switches, the United States psyche has never been as 
oriented toward efficiency. The average American uses nearly twice 
as much energy as the average European, experts say. LAST week, a 
conservation-minded customer brought a stack of hangers to a 
cleaner here for re-use, and was told, "We don't do that." The 
store clerk threw them out.

Amory B. Lovins, a prominent advocate of energy efficiency, said 
skinny copper wires that carry electricity to light fixtures can 
be found above the ceilings in many buildings. If fatter wires 
were installed, he said, there would be an energy savings of 
nearly 200 percent. "It's a subtle but pervasive example of how 
our market system is not using energy in a way that saves money," 
said Mr. Lovins, who heads the Rocky Mountain Institution in 
Snowmass, Colo. "If an electrician were altruistic enough to buy 
the fatter wire, that electrician would never have gotten the job 
in the first place because he would not have had the lowest bid."

So it is that, while politicians have been competing to be 
perceived as pro-conservation (a joke making the rounds here is 
that Mr. Bush is planning to reinstall solar panels that Jimmy 
Carter put in the roof of the White House), they have taken care 
not to suggest anything that would spoil the sacred American way 
of life. No one wants to repeat the mistake made during the energy 
crisis of the 1970's by Mr. Carter, whose call for austerity left 
people wondering whether they would find themselves shivering in 
the dark under a blanket.

"I reject that term, sacrifice," said Gov. Gray Davis of 
California, a Democrat. "We're asking people to reduce their 
personal energy consumption by at least 10 percent. But that is 
not difficult to do. People don't have to have every light in the 
house on, every television operating, even when no one's watching 
and all the computers are on 24 hours a day. That's simply 
wasteful and unnecessary." The White House has apparently banned 
the word sacrifice from its talking points. On the contrary, Ari 
Fleischer, the White House press secretary, declared that "Mr. 
Bush believes that energy use is a reflection of the strength of 
our economy" and "the American way of life is a blessed one and we 
have a bounty of resources in this country."

Those remarks and other by Vice President Dick Cheney, while 
cheered by the energy industry, made the White House appear so 
blithely indifferent to the environment that Mr. Bush was forced 
to dress up his energy policy with conservation initiatives. 
Predictably, this has not satisfied environmentalists, who note 
that there are few mandatory conservation measures. "You can 
summarize the president's energy policy as real men dig, drill and 
burn," said Philip E. Clapp, president of the National 
Environmental Trust, "and conservation is for wimps."

Republicans, well aware that Democrats are widely viewed as more 
environmentally sensitive, are emphasizing the economy and the 
consumer. The White House has lined up both conservatives and 
labor leaders behind its policy to make the point that it would 
help the economy stay competitive - and that creating jobs, 
especially during a time of economic uncertainty, should be the 
highest priority. Implicit in this view is that environmentalism 
is bad for the economy and bad for the average worker. "There is a 
tremendous opportunity for Republicans to discredit 
environmentalists," said Myron Ebell, who is in charge of global 
warming issues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a 
conservative group. "There is something fundamentally anti-
consumer and undemocratic about Democratic coercion to force 
people to change their lifestyle. The effect of their policies 
would be to lower the American standard of living."
Democrats counter that people have grown too sophisticated for 
such scare tactics and that there are enormous hidden costs - 
health care, toxic cleanups, loss of tourism - to a policy that 
pushes production at the expense of the environment. 

"The Bush people are approaching this as a trade-off: either you 
sacrifice or you dig in the national forest," said Mark Mellman, a 
pollster who has conducted surveys on the environment for the 
Democratic National Committee. "The public says you can have 
both." But can people really have it both ways? Advocates on both 
sides agree that to successfully grapple with the nation's energy 
needs and the demands for clean air, water and a landscape not 
utterly despoiled, there has to be some balance between production 
and conservation. Finding that balance, at least politically, is 
the big challenge. "We're all guilty," said Senator Richard 
Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. "We all want the benefits. But we 
don't want to make the sacrifices."

36) IS BUSH'S POLICY TOO OIL-SLICK?
Time Magazine
May. 18, 2001
Internet:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,127036,00.html

BY ERIC ROSTON 

Nailed to the doors of the White House this morning reporters 
found Vice President Cheney's 95 theses, actually 105 
recommendations, for modernizing the nation's energy 
infrastructure, boosting fuel supplies, and throwing political 
bones to anyone whose environmental politics veer to the left of 
the President's - which is to say, anyone who has any. 

The report's most controversial recommendations have been widely 
known and discussed for months: drill in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge and elsewhere; increase reliance on nuclear power; 
tie research money for renewable energy, such as wind and solar, 
to revenues from aforementioned drilling. The ANWR debate is 
expected to crumble under the weight of congressional 
environmentalists; the waste-related risks of nuclear power plants 
- compared with the global warming threat - may look like the 
lesser of two evils. Renewable energy, which now composes an eye-
popping 2% of the nation's energy grid, needs a heck of a lot more 
than federal research dollars if it is ever to become a national 
alternative to fossil fuel energy. 

The plan's real identity resides behind the prose and in the 
details too small for political prognosticators to sniff out 
before the document's release. For example, the overview, released 
last night, immediately conjures the proverbial elephant in the 
room. Take this: "Many families face energy bills two to three 
times higher than they were a year ago... some employers must lay 
off workers or curtail production to absorb the rising cost of 
energy. Drivers across America are paying higher and higher 
gasoline prices." 

No one would expect the President's commission to remind everyone 
that energy companies are having a great run, but it immediately 
subtracts at least some credibility from the rhetoric to highlight 
people's troubles without saying that a lot of other people are 
happy to see them troubled. Of course, it's not news that 
political documents shed credibility as quickly as possible, 
Republican, Democrat, Green or Whig, but some balance would be 
nice sometimes. Dynergy and Duke Energy, which operate plants in 
California, saw first-quarter 2000 profits jump 40% and 63% 
respectively. Exxon Mobil's net income more than doubled last year 
to $17.7 billion. These are not hard times for everyone. 

Though the industries that will implement the energy policy are 
never mentioned, the recommendations that are neither redundant 
nor fluff generally sound their factories' morning whistle (The 
only sector mentioned is the auto industry, which, the report 
states, should not be "negatively impacted" by any new Corporate 
Average Fuel Economy standards. A worthy sentiment, but 
"negatively impacted" itself looms as fuel for later debate.) 

The NEPD group suggests that the president call on federal 
agencies to speed up the approval of permits to build power plants 
and the opening of land to development; evaluate and remove 
unnecessary impediments to oil and gas exploration "with full 
public consultation"; write up incentives for "environmentally 
sound offshore oil and gas development" (no doubt an oxymoron in 
greener parts of Washington); and the construction of pipelines 
and electricity transmission networks. 

The vice president's committee endorses nominal environmental 
policies. But any such policies are mitigated by the report's 
first recommendation, that federal regulators take into account 
the "energy impact" of any new action and avoid any "adverse 
energy effects." These caveats, in such a privileged spot in the 
report, essentially encourage regulators to take energy concerns 
into account when attempting to save the environment from our 
nation's prodigious energy consumption. That said, the group does 
encourage the president to pursue three-pollutant legislation, to 
limit the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury output of 
electricity generators. 

Formerly known as four-pollutant legislation, the policy changed 
its name after Bush changed his mind on the need to regulate 
carbon dioxide emissions. Chapter Four addresses energy 
efficiency, and suggests that the EPA expand its successful Energy 
Star conservation program to include homes and public buildings 
such as schools or hospitals. The title of most unfortunately-
worded recommendation must go to the discussion of nuclear waste. 
After calling for the rebirth of nuclear power plant construction, 
the group must decide what to do with all that dangerous waste, 
namely, the separated plutonium that emerges from the generation 
of nuclear energy. Study the matter, they say, and develop ways to 
reduce waste: "In doing so, the United States will continue to 
discourage the accumulation of separated plutonium, worldwide." 
Would hate to see the Bush administration charged as "soft on 
plutonium." 

For those who still remember the election, when Democrats and 
Republicans temporarily swapped positions on states' rights, the 
policy group advises the president to empower the federal 
government to seize land for the construction of electricity 
transmission lines. Governors and state representatives are 
already furious. The rest of us can just think of it as a small 
reminder of the eagerness with which the two parties are willing 
to overstep the usual bounds of the federalist debate when it's 
convenient. 

The adverse economic effects of an energy shortage should not be 
discounted; indeed, Republican pollsters are finding that the best 
way for the president to mollify public concern over the plan's 
environmental unfriendliness is to sell it as a matter of economic 
security - in the land of the consumer, lower prices are still 
king. But those pollsters are also hearing that many voters 
suspect that this energy "shortage" and its attendant price hikes 
have been drummed up by a profiteering Big Oil. 

Perhaps the most perspicacious commentary on the new policy 
belongs to The Onion, the popular satirical newspaper, which last 
week ran the headline, "After Careful Consideration, Bush 
Recommends Oil Drilling." Unless the president and his team can 
duck Democratic accusations that they are industry puppets, it 
will be difficult for we energy gluttons to feel that this White 
House has our best interests at heart. 

See also from Time: 
'So, We've Got an Energy Plan. How Much of it Will Fly?' at: 
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,110237,00.html

37) SIMPLY THE WRONG POLICY 
The Guardian-UK
May 19, 2001 
Internet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4189002,00.html

Exxon's $1.2m pre-electoral contribution to the Republican party 
must rank as the most cost-effective political gift of all time, 
judging by the Bush administration's new profligate energy policy. 
Having recklessly abandoned the Kyoto commitment to reduce 
greenhouse gases by 5% by 2010, President Bush has now gone gung-
ho for a vast expansion of the oil, nuclear and coal industries, 
coupled with some tactical concessions in the direction of serious 
energy conservation. 

The gas-guzzling US has 5% of the world's population yet is 
responsible for 40% of fossil fuel consumption. If the rest of the 
world demanded to match America's per capita consumption, then the 
planet might have to shut for business. The fundamental problem 
with the Bush plan is that it is all about boosting supply and not 
about curbing demand. Even when he appears to make concessions to 
the environmental lobby - as with the $1.2bn for funding renewable 
energy resources - it is tied to royalties from the 
administration's highly controversial plans to start drilling for 
oil and natural gas in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. 

The US needs to expand energy supplies and to establish a national 
electricity grid to alleviate regional problems, such as the 
ongoing California black-outs. But it would not need to build 
anything like the 1,300 new nuclear, gas and coal fired stations 
it is planning if it were to act dramatically to increase spending 
on renewables and reduce US citizens' divine right to use as much 
energy as they want while paying as little as they can get away 
with. 

If the energy history of the 20th century was all about 
hydrocarbons and nuclear power, the 21st century will be about 
harnessing energy from wind, solar power - of which the well-
endowed US has abundant resources - and hydrogen. By burying 
itself in the sand, the US will enrage other countries that have 
signed up to the Kyoto targets and increase US isolationism. It 
will also give the rest of the world a competitive edge in 
developing alternative sources. 

Of course, it may not turn out as bad as it looks. Some 
enlightened companies, such as Ford, are accepting corporate 
responsibility for global warming in a way that shames the 
politicians. Also, if the US starts building nuclear power plants 
in large numbers after a freeze of over 20 years then this will 
make a contribution, albeit unintended, to the Kyoto targets 
because nuclear plants do not emit greenhouse gases. The objection 
to nuclear plants is this: even if their formidable safety 
problems can be overcome (which is possible) they still have to 
prove they are not hopelessly uneconomic requiring hefty and 
continuing public subsidies from the taxpayer that would be better 
spent on renewables. 

The Bush proposals will rightly face fierce opposition in Congress 
from Democrats and environmentally minded Republicans and, maybe, 
even greater opposition from voters not prepared to have pylons or 
oil pipelines anywhere near their properties. The provisions have 
been carefully crafted so that only 20 out of 105 principles need 
congressional approval - but that is enough to make a battlefield. 

What America really needs is a carbon tax, the proceeds of which 
could be channelled into a really serious exploitation of 
renewable resources. If solar and wind power - both of which can 
provide solutions to local energy shortages without needing to be 
part of a national grid - had been given even half of the research 
budget that went into ill-fated experiments with nuclear power, 
then US attitudes to energy today might be very different. 

38) BACK TO THE ENERGY STONE AGE 
Washington Times
May 23, 2001
Internet: http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010523-17524342.htm

By Tony Blankley

A quarter-century ago, the renowned Stanford ecologist Professor 
Paul Ehrlich wrote: "Giving society cheap, abundant energy would 
be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." He 
wrote those words in the face of the uncontradicted fact that, 
since the Industrial Revolution more than two centuries ago, there 
is no example of prosperity increasing without an increase in 
energy use.

A huge majority of Americans utterly reject the idea that we 
should not hope and plan for a society in which our children will 
be more prosperous than we are. So far, no American generation has 
failed to deliver on that hope for their childrens or 
grandchildrens generation. And yet, Mr. Ehrlichs sneering 
assessment of America and the West is at the heart of todays 
political fight about energy.

This contempt for American prosperity now has metastasized into a 
generalized loathing for all things American. In last Sundays New 
York Times, Maureen Dowd, the most gifted political and cultural 
columnist currently writing, let loose with 800 words of hatred 
for America: ". . . We dont have limits, we have liberties . . . 
Well bake the Earth . . . We will drive faster in our gigantic 
air conditioned cars . . . We will let our power plants spew any 
chemicals . . . We will drill for oil whenever and wherever we 
please . . . We dont care about caribou . . . We want our 
refrigerators cold . . . We will put toxic waste wherever we want, 
whenever we waste it . . . We will have the biggest baddest 
missiles . . . We will thrust as many satellites as we want into 
outer space . . . We will modify any food in any way we want and 
send it to any country we see fit at prices that we and we alone 
determine . . . We will fly up any coast of any nation with any 
plane filled with surveillance equipment . . . We will kill any 
criminal we want . . . We are America."

Lets put to the side her many manifest factual errors (we dont 
let our power plants spew any chemicals, we redesigned that Alaska 
pipeline and increased the number of caribou, we dont put nuclear 
waste wherever we want, we are reducing the number of our 
missiles, we dont force modified food on any country, we dont 
set prices, we dont kill any criminals we want we execute only 
proven murderers).

Standing as asserted, the Ehrlich/Dowd/Democratic Party thesis 
rejects President Bushs energy program not because it wont 
provide us with abundant, affordable, environmentally safe energy 
and the prosperity that comes with it, but because it will. The 
battle is joined, and on terms that give good reason to hope for 
victory.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle put it quite well, if 
idiotically, last Thursday: " is not a plan for Americas future, 
its a page from our past. It relies almost exclusively on the old 
ways of doing things: drilling more oil wells, burning more coal 
and using more natural gas." He left out more nuclear energy, but 
. . . well, yes. In the past we had abundant energy and ever 
increasing prosperity. If we dont develop sources of energy, the 
future will be unlike the past we and our children will have to 
make do with less and less.

Mr. Daschle thinks conservation is the answer. Conservation is 
useful if it means producing and using energy more efficiently. 
Engines summoned by marketplace demand have been getting more 
efficient for 200 years. But its not enough. What Mr. Daschle 
means by conservation is giving up energy-consuming activities. If 
we cut back 10 percent per year on our energy use, in only 10 
years we will not need any energy we will live by our muscle 
power. Mankind has tried that its called the Stone Age.

And, as Mr. Ehrlich and Miss Dowd let out of the bag, something 
like that is their America-loathing objective. They dont think 
Americans have a right to the American way of life. Half of the 
new vehicles sold in America are SUVs. They think Americans 
shouldnt have that liberty. We shouldnt have large refrigerators 
that keep our childrens milk cold. Food poisoning would be 
preferable. They dont think old people (or the rest of us) should 
have the comfort of air conditioning. Let the old folks die from 
heat prostration. They dont think the grain that makes our daily 
bread should be cultivated and grown as cheaply as possible. Let 
the poor people go without. Or let them eat cake.

When the liberals say this is a battle for the future against the 
policies of the past, they mean it. They hate our past. They hate 
our prosperity.They hate the American way of life. They think that 
Americans are a blight on the land. Let every American look upon 
the face of a child and ask: Is this a blight or a blessing?

E-mail: tonyblankley@erols.com 
Tony Blankley is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column 
appears on Wednesdays.

39) BUSH VS. THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
New York Times
May 23, 2001 
Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/23/opinion/23REDF.html?searchpv=nytToday

By ROBERT REDFORD

NASHVILLE - Listening to President Bush's speech on energy last 
week left me yearning for a straight story. His rhetoric seemed 
intended either to frighten or to lull one into a false sense of 
security. It didn't help that as he presented an energy plan - 
developed with help from lobbyists for oil, coal, gas, mining and 
nuclear power - the president buttoned up his speech by asking all 
of us to stop bickering, to set a new tone and listen to each 
other. Since Vice President Dick Cheney refused even to meet with 
environmental groups, it seems a rather curious, if not 
disingenuous, request.

Mr. Bush made it sound so simple. Build tens of thousands of miles 
of new pipelines, hundreds of oil and gas wells, and more than a 
thousand new power plants, and it will again be "morning in 
America." He claims it can be done with little impact. Drilling in 
the Arctic, off our beaches or anywhere determined to be 
"necessary" is a harmless matter, he says, thanks to new 
technologies that render the whole enterprise environmentally 
friendly. This is simply untrue.

Mr. Cheney has been making a point of telling anyone who will 
listen that the federal government hasn't granted a new nuclear 
power permit in 20 years. Nobody has applied for one. Three Mile 
Island served as a cautionary tale that even the most aggressive 
corporate energy interests could not ignore. Until now. The 
president's support for nuclear power is boldly presented with 
nary a nod to inherent risks associated with nuclear waste, 
nuclear weapons material or power plant accidents.

A look behind the rhetoric reveals that at the heart of the Bush 
energy plan are proposals to weaken longstanding environmental 
safeguards. Americans fought hard over the last three decades for 
these protections. But the Bush plan holds the corporate energy 
lobby in higher esteem than ordinary Americans who breathe the 
air, drink the water and overwhelmingly support protecting our 
wilderness. Coal and oil companies, despite record profits, now 
seek enormous new taxpayer subsidies and relief from environmental 
safeguards as payback for their campaign support.

Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is but a 
piece of a plan that makes oil and gas exploration and development 
fair game on nearly all of our public lands, even extraordinary 
places that were awarded protection as national monuments by the 
previous administration. The Upper Missouri Breaks in Montana, 
Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in Utah, and Vermillion Basin 
in northwestern Colorado may all become subject to exploitation. 
It's nonsense to think new oil and gas exploration and development 
won't destroy these incomparable wild places.

Why not tighten fuel economy standards instead? This alone could, 
over the next 50 years, free up 15 times as much oil as could be 
produced by drilling in the Arctic, and it would benefit consumers 
much faster. The administration wants merely to "study" this 
option. More study? Well, we know what that means. For 
electricity, simply supporting the higher air conditioner 
efficiency standards proposed by the previous administration would 
save 13,000 megawatts during periods of peak demand in 2020, 
equivalent to the output of dozens of power plants.

Thirty years ago, corporate America danced across the nation 
dumping toxic waste into our rivers, spewing chemicals into our 
air and ravaging pristine public lands, all in the name of 
progress. In response to the horrific environmental damage of the 
postwar era, a broad coalition of Americans began working to 
represent public health, safety and environmental concerns in all 
levels of government. Now we face an administration trying to 
unravel this work.

Unfortunately, we have the examples of Three Mile Island and 
Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez accident and innumerable studies 
proving pollution's ill effect on public health to demonstrate 
that the stakes could hardly be higher. Solid science clearly 
shows that global warming exists and that the administration's 
drill, dig and burn approach will only make it worse. I continue 
to hope for a reasonable dialogue that actually includes the 
environmental community, but the administration's posture suggests 
that is unlikely. If he does not make environmental concerns 
central to his energy policy, President Bush may well leave the 
next generation with nothing but ashes to stand in.

Robert Redford, the actor and director, is a board member of the 
Natural Resources Defense Council.

40) BUSINESS AS USUAL: ANOTHER FORM OF INACTION
Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa)
May 24, 2001 
Internet: http://allafrica.com/stories/200105250032.html

By B. Mezgebu

The Kyoto agreement on climate change was meant to save this 
planet's inhabitants from themselves; if and when the Protocol 
were ratified. In its broadest terms the Kyoto proposal, we 
understand, had this as its core point: the planet, even if it is 
not coming to an end, it's certainly in big trouble. If we keep on 
burning coal, fossil fuel and whatever else it is people are 
burning, at the present rate, global weather will go haywire. So 
the central recommendation in the document is, to put it rather at 
an elementary level, please burn but burn with restraint. And the 
responses? Some countries responded by saying, heck no, we will 
burn until our economy is on a par to or even better than our 
neighbor's. Others like the U. S. think the agreement is basically 
for wimps and that not only do they intend to continue burning but 
that they will do all it takes to continue the momentum. A good 
example of business as usual at its highest.

Reminding its readers that business as usual is not a viable 
option, Time (May 7, 2001) had this to say on water worldwide, and 
its threatened status at present. " Water, not oil, is the most 
precious fluid in our lives, the substance from which all life on 
the earth has sprang and continues to depend. If we run short of 
oil and other fossil fuels, we can use alternative energy sources. 
If we have no clean, drinkable water, we are doomed. As the 6 
billion passengers abroad Spaceship Earth enter a complex new 
century, few issues are as fundamental as water. We are falling 
far short, of the most basic humanitarian goals: sufficient and 
affordable clean water, food and energy for everyone."
Nations have gone to war for all sorts of reasons; including on 
account of soccer. Threats of "water wars", therefore, don't come 
as much of surprise. Serious disputes over water already exist: 
Israel and Lebanon. Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Israel and Jordan. 
Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Senegal and Mauritius. Iran 
and Afghanistan among others. Despite such ongoing disputes and 
despite dire warnings of worsening global water shortages in the 
future by scientists, for most nations it is business as usual. 
Aquifers are relentlessly pumped, ecosystems degraded, grazing 
areas are overgrazed, trees are chopped for the slimmest of 
reasons, agricultural lands are plowed into bits. In other words, 
most countries fail to pay attention to how they protect future 
sources of water and how to use water presently. Because as Time 
put it, that is where "new water" will be found.

Most experts on the subject believe that in so many facets of 
water conservation and development, the situation is so desperate 
that all inaction, or just business as usual can only compound the 
problems. On the other hand, even local actions, taken by 
communities without having to wait endlessly for sophisticated 
solution to come from outside, can prove a viable solution.

Family planning is another area suffering from business as usual. 
No draconian action need be taken in population control. "One 
child policy" might have worked in China; it may have no buyers in 
most other places. But even the supposedly custom-made, family 
planning, counseling is moving at the speed of a wounded tortoise. 
There could be millions of people in this country, for example, 
that may not have yet heard about the existence of such a concept 
even. In one Woreda in central Ethiopia, for example, the quota 
for one year shown under the title Family Planning Extension is 
only 28 families. For the population in the area which is in the 
hundreds of thousands, it is some quota.

The worst form of inaction in population planning is, not reaching 
people wherever they are, whatever their status within their 
community, with the information and the means to enable them to 
determine their family sizes.

41) OUR OWN PRIVATE KYOTO 
The Oregonian
May 21, 2001
Internet:
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/editorials/ore
gonian/ed_21_mki21.frame

When cities and counties take grand stands against planetary 
problems -- nuclear proliferation, for example -- they sometimes 
succeed only in looking silly. Who do they think they are, anyway: 
Zeus throwing thunderbolts? Citizens snicker and roll their eyes. 
If you feel the corners of your mouth twitching at the idea of a 
local attack on global warming, try reading the 35-page plan, 
recently approved by Multnomah County and the city of Portland. 
It's not a political prop. It's impressive, and it's disturbing -- 
take the example of Glacier National Park, which has already lost 
18 glaciers and may be glacierless by 2070. The plan lays out 
real, and serious, strategies to decrease the greenhouse gases 
emitted in Multnomah County. The chief culprit in global warming, 
implicated in about 82 percent of the problem, is carbon dioxide -
- some of it coming from a tailpipe near you. 

See, that's what's annoying about this plan. Just when you were 
prepared to sink into a comfortable despondency about global 
warming -- blame President Bush for abandoning the 1997 Kyoto 
Protocol, blame world population, blame consumerism, blame Detroit 
for not producing more fuel-efficient cars, blame Congress for not 
forcing Detroit to produce more fuel-efficient cars (all valid 
blames) -- the plan puts you in the hot seat again. 

On this issue, local and global fit together logically. "Unlike 
the nuclearfree zone, many, and perhaps most, energy decisions are 
local," explains Susan Anderson in the city's Office of 
Sustainable Development. "Cities control building codes, zoning 
and land use, street layouts, traffic controls (and) use huge 
amounts of energy." It was embarrassing for Portland, and rightly 
so, earlier this year when it was disclosed that the city 
government had accumulated 135 sport utility vehicles. Sure, some 
may be justified. But the city that was first in the nation to 
adopt a global warming plan, in 1993 -- and loves to brag about 
that fact -- should have been keeping an eye on its gas mileage 
long before SUV expenses sparked budgetary concerns. 

Like it or not, this latest version of the global warming plan, 
adopted jointly with Multnomah County, does inescapably point to 
the need to upgrade fuel efficiency of vehicles. Oregon drivers, 
on average, are getting only 18 or 19 miles per gallon of 
gasoline. Each gallon of gas we burn puts 20 pounds of carbon 
dioxide into the atmosphere. 

That's a shocker, particularly when you realize what you'd need to 
do to cancel that amount. The plan shows you: You'd need to plant 
a tree. Just one, and you would remove 25 pounds of carbon dioxide 
from the atmosphere over a year's time. True, that tree will keep 
scouring the atmosphere for, say, another 30 years, subtracting 
750 pounds of carbon dioxide in all. But, meanwhile, you're still 
stepping on the gas. That one tree, even over its entire life, 
erases only an eighth of the 8,000 pounds of carbon dioxide your 
car emits in one year of driving. 

The plan, in addition to laying out dozens of strategies local 
government can pursue, also makes it easy for individuals to do 
the math on their own personal global warming problem. If the odds 
look discouraging, here's where it comes in handy to have local 
government backing you up, to know from the plan, for instance, 
that from 1996-2000, the city of Portland planted more than 
600,000 trees. Global warming is one of those macro-problems that 
makes most people feel microscopic. But we're not as puny or 
powerless as we like to think, and the city-county plan doesn't 
let us get away with thinking that we are. 

42) GLOBAL DISMAY OVER US PLAN
The Star Malaysia
May 24, 2001
Internet:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2001/5/24/nation/2424etma&sec
=nation

By Martin Khor 

Last Friday, US President George Bush unveiled his energy plan, 
which was immediately condemned by friends and foes alike for 
being harmful to the global environment. Specifically, it will 
lead to further emissions of the polluting gases that cause global 
warming, as well as encourage nuclear energy. Coming so soon after 
the US pullout from the Kyoto protocol, this marks a disaster for 
global efforts to reverse climate change. Bush is also opening 
himself to criticism that his plan confirms suspicions that his 
presidency and policies are dominated by cronyism, especially with 
the energy companies. 

FIRST, it was the announcement that the United States would pull 
out of the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Now, there is the 
unveiling of a new energy plan by American President George W. 
Bush, aimed at increasing coal and oil output, which in turn will 
add to emissions of polluting gases that contribute to global 
warming. These two inter-connected developments are earning the 
United States great unpopularity, to say the least. 

Even its traditional allies, the European countries, are 
nonplussed and outraged at such irresponsibility on the part of 
the world's lone superpower. Global warming is now almost 
universally accepted as perhaps the gravest threat to Earth's 
survival. "Greehouse gases" such as carbon dioxide, pumped into 
the atmosphere by industries and vehicles using fossil fuels (such 
as oil and coal), are causing the world's temperature to rise 
significantly. This threatens to melt the Arctic ice, and increase 
the level of sea water, which can flood cities and coastal areas 
and even whole island states. 

The change in climate can also cause disruption to agriculture, 
forests, marine life, rainfall, and make life inhospitable or 
unlivable in many parts of the world, in the next several decades. 
The signs of the melting of Arctic ice, of significant changes in 
climate, and of ecological disturbance and social disruption have 
increased in recent years, adding to the urgency felt to resolve 
the looming crisis. The Kyoto protocol of the Climate Change 
Convention was the centrepiece of the action. Developed countries 
agreed to begin reducing their emission of poisonous gases, or 
least to reduce the growth rate of emissions, by certain 
percentages. Later on, developing countries might join in, after 
being satisfied that the major countries causing the problem are 
sincere in reducing and changing their energy use. 

The reversal of trend agreed to in Kyoto would still be much too 
little and too late to stop the peril. But it would at least mark 
that the rich countries recognise the problem and are willing to 
begin some action. During the election campaign, Bush said he 
would take climate change seriously but one of his first acts in 
office was to shock the world by announcing the United States did 
not believe in the Kyoto protocol. 

As the chief emitter of greehouse gases, the withdrawal of US 
commitment to the protocol has set back the world's anti-global 
warming action schedule. And this threatens Earth's survival as 
there is little time left to prevent the looming catastrophes. 
This background is the context for the blunt statement last Friday 
by Swedish Environment Minister Kjell Larsson (whose country now 
chairs the European Union), that the US rejection of the Kyoto 
protocol is "the most dangerous development for the future." 
French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius added that "the world's 
leading power cannot disengage from the planet's problems." They 
were both speaking at a high-powered meeting of ministers of the 
30-member "rich countries' club," the Organisation for Economic 
Co-operation and Development. 

Because they feel so let down, the other developed countries did 
not vote the United States as one of their representatives to two 
United Nations bodies, including the Commission on Human Rights, 
when elections took place earlier this month. This failure to be 
elected has outraged the US Congress, but it reflects how the 
United States has lost goodwill not only among developing 
countries (many of which have long considered it as a bully) but 
also among its closest allies. Last week Bush landed his country 
into hotter soup with his energy plan. 

Almost all other developed countries are now committed to phasing 
out the use of fossil fuels and using alternative and more eco-
friendly energy, precisely as part of the plan to combat 
greenhouse gases and climate change. Bush's energy plan does the 
opposite. It loosens regulations on oil and gas exploration, a 
move designed to allow exploration and extraction in Alaska, the 
Rocky Mountains, the Gulf Coast and even the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. The plan also urges the revision or re-
interpretation of the Clean Air Act that requires government 
review of any modifications of power plants that affect their 
emissions. Lawsuits brought by the Clinton administration against 
companies ignoring that law may also be reviewed. Moreover the 
plan also encourages the use of nuclear energy, which is widely 
regarded as anti-environmental. 

It calls for new evaluation of nuclear reprocessing, aimed at 
recovering plutonium from nuclear fuel, a process that is dirty 
and carries the threat of radioactive releases. The Bush energy 
plan has been criticised in the United States by Democrats for 
increasing air pollution and opening pristine federal land to 
development, and condemned by environmental groups. Outside the 
United States, criticisms are also pouring in. The Fiji-based 
Pacific Concerns Resources Centre (PCRC), representing many NGOs 
in the Pacific islands, called the Bush plan a crime, and asked 
that the United States be brought before an international justice 
system. 

"If it comes to the crunch in climate change, some communities and 
cultures here will cease to exist. It is totally unjust," said 
Patrina Dumaru of the PCRC. The Pacific island states face sea 
erosion, more intense cyclones and some may sink below sea level 
if temperatures continue to rise due to global warming. Dumaru was 
alarmed at Bush's plan to increase nuclear power use. "If nuclear 
power output grows, they will look for nuclear waste dumps and I 
fear the place they will look at will be the Pacific. 

"We are tired of everything they dish out to us," she said. Why is 
Bush pushing for oil, coal and nuclear energy and against the 
Kyoto protocol in the face of scientific facts and world public 
opinion? In announcing his energy plan, he said the United States 
needed to be less dependent on imports of foreign oil and energy 
supplies, so that it would not be vulnerable to foreign pressure. 
However, a simpler and less noble reason is not difficult to find. 
It is well known that Bush and key members of his administration 
are beholden to the energy industry and themselves come from it. 
The Democrat Party leader in Congress, Richard Gephardt, put it 
this way: "This is a plan mostly engineered for and by the energy 
companies. 

"They are in danger of only reinforcing the public opinion that 
they are closely aligned with the energy industry in what they are 
doing." A report in the Asian Wall Street Journal (May 17) 
documents the links between key US administration personnel and 
the benefits the companies or industries they are connected with 
will derive from the energy report: 

BUSH received US$2.8mil (RM10.6mil) from oil, gas, mining and 
utility interests during the 2000 presidential campaign. Overall 
these sectors gave US$64mil (RM243mil) in 2000, with 75% going to 
Republicans. 

VICE-PRESIDENT Dick Cheney, who headed the White House task force 
on the energy plan, earned over US$30mil (RM114mil) in salary and 
stock in 2000 as chief executive officer of Halliburton Company, 
an oil-field-services company that will benefit from looser 
regulations on refineries and pipelines in the energy report. 

WHITE House Chief of Staff Andrew Card earned at least US$500,000 
(RM1.9bil) each year to lobby for General Motors and other US auto 
makers. Under the Bush plan, the auto industry will not have to 
improve fuel efficiency of their gas-guzzling sport utility 
vehicles and will profit from tax credits to consumers buying 
their hybrid gas-electric cars. 

COMMERCE Secretary Donald Evans was awarded a US$5.3mil 
(RM20.1mil) retirement package when he retired as CEO of oil and 
gas company Tom Brown Inc, which should gain from the plan's 
emphasis on oil and gas exploration. 

AT least 15 other officials who have been appointed or nominated 
have ties to the auto and energy industries. For example, the 
activist Environmental Working Group has circulated a memo to 
Congress on the work of the mining-industry lobbyist J. Steven 
Giles, who was nominated as deputy secretary of the Interior 
Department. The memo is highly critical of his work on behalf of 
the coal industry. A report of the Bush presidency, when the 
administration was being formed, noted that it was no longer 
necessary for the corporations (particularly the energy companies) 
to lobby the government, as they now formed the government. 

When the history of cronyism is finally written, it will surely be 
noted that the country that most shrilly preaches to others 
against having strong government-corporate links, is the one that 
has the most of such links, to the point where it is hard to 
distinguish anymore the line between government and corporations. 
Unfortunately, this cronyism at the heart of the Bush presidency 
can also cost the Earth its survival, as the process of global 
warming scores yet another victory over humanity's weak and 
unconvincing attempt to control it. 
_________________________________________________

Chad Carpenter
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
New York, NY
Tel: + 1 (212) 673-1818
Fax: + 1 (309) 419-8814 
E-mail: ccarpenter@iisd.ca
IISDnet: http://iisd.ca/

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