date: Mon, 28 May 2001 15:55:14 -0500 from: "Chad Carpenter" subject: Climate News - 28 May 2001 to: "Climate Change Info Mailing List" 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 (Ģ590). 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 (Ģ765,000) 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'Energétique 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 Schröder, 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. Schröder 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 Niņo 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 childrenīs or grandchildrenīs generation. And yet, Mr. Ehrlichīs sneering assessment of America and the West is at the heart of todayīs political fight about energy. This contempt for American prosperity now has metastasized into a generalized loathing for all things American. In last Sundayīs New York Times, Maureen Dowd, the most gifted political and cultural columnist currently writing, let loose with 800 words of hatred for America: ". . . We donīt have limits, we have liberties . . . Weīll 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 donīt 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." Letīs put to the side her many manifest factual errors (we donīt let our power plants spew any chemicals, we redesigned that Alaska pipeline and increased the number of caribou, we donīt put nuclear waste wherever we want, we are reducing the number of our missiles, we donīt force modified food on any country, we donīt set prices, we donīt kill any criminals we want we execute only proven murderers). Standing as asserted, the Ehrlich/Dowd/Democratic Party thesis rejects President Bushīs energy program not because it wonīt 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 Americaīs future, itīs 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 donīt 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 itīs 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 itīs 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 donīt think Americans have a right to the American way of life. Half of the new vehicles sold in America are SUVs. They think Americans shouldnīt have that liberty. We shouldnīt have large refrigerators that keep our childrenīs milk cold. Food poisoning would be preferable. They donīt think old people (or the rest of us) should have the comfort of air conditioning. Let the old folks die from heat prostration. They donīt 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/ --- You are currently subscribed to climate-l as: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-climate-l-15281Y@lists.iisd.ca