White House Refuses to Take Action Against Global
Warming
|
Mike Johnston
|
Feb 04, 2007 12:31 PST
|
[http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020307Y.shtml]
By John Heilprin The Associated Press
Friday 02 February 2007
Washington - Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the
world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed
continued opposition Friday to mandatory reductions in
heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences"
- including job losses - that he said might result if the government
requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels.
"There is a concern within this administration, which I support, that
the imposition of a carbon cap in this country would - may - lead to
the transfer of jobs and industry abroad (to nations) that do not have
such a carbon cap," Bodman said. "You would then have the U.S. economy
damaged, on the one hand, and the same emissions, potentially even
worse emissions."
President Bush used the same economic reasoning when he rejected the
Kyoto Protocol in 2001, an international treaty requiring 35 industrial
nations to cut their global-warming gases by 5 percent on average below
1990 levels by 2012. The White House has said the treaty would have
cost 5 million U.S. jobs.
"Even if we were successful in accomplishing some kind of debate and
discussion about what caps might be here in the United States, we are a
small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the
world. And so it's really got to be a global solution," Bodman said.
--
Posted By Mike Johnston to H2OPower at 2/04/2007 02:46:00 PM
|
|
 |
|
