From dmahony@mail1.tinet.ie Tue Oct 21 11:24:10 1997 Received: from mx2.u.washington.edu (mx2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id LAA38826 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:23:47 -0700 Received: from spock.tinet.ie (spock.tinet.ie [159.134.237.8]) by mx2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with ESMTP id LAA03180 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:23:32 -0700 Received: from lizard (p28.tralee1.tinet.ie [159.134.232.28]) by spock.tinet.ie (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id SAA27219; Tue, 21 Oct 1997 18:40:09 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199710211740.SAA27219@spock.tinet.ie> From: "" To: MBOX1C.PML@spock.tinet.ie Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 18:40:42 +0000 X-Distribution: Bulk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Environment Emergency Fund Reply-to: dmahony@tinet.ie X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.53/R1) WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN CONTRIBUTING SERVICES TO THE CREATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY FUND? IT IS TO BE A GRASSROOTS INTERNET ORG. FOR THE PURPOSE OF GETTING THE WORLD TO REALIZE THAT, TAKEN AS A WHOLE, OUR ENVIRONMENT IS IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY. Please forward to as many persons as you see fit. Thank you. --------------------------------- Monday October 20, 1997 11:27 PM EDT U.S. Reports 3.4 Pct Jump in Carbon Pollution By Vicki Allen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States last year posted one of its biggest annual increases in heat-trapping industrial pollution, the government reported Monday. U.S. carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in 1996 jumped 3.4 percent above 1995, the Energy Information Administration said. That means the nation would have to cut emissions by 8.3 percent to reach the 1990 level frequently used as a benchmark in negotiations to fight climate change. The new figures were released as world leaders were considering how to reduce the threat of global warming from industrial pollution. President Clinton this week is expected to announce targets he will seek in a treaty to cut the world's output of carbon gases that trap heat, with potentially dire results of rising sea levels and more severe storms and droughts. A negotiating session was underway this week in Bonn, and the talks were to conclude in December in Kyoto, Japan. Already by far the world's biggest carbon emitter, the United States last year had its biggest rise in carbon pollution in recent years partly because of its booming economy and severe weather, the EPA said in it latest analysis. Emissions grew faster than the 3.2 percent rise in the nation's energy use, partly because stiff prices for relatively clean-burning natural gas prompted utilities to shift to dirtier coal for electricity generation, it said. That, combined with a 2.4 rise in electricity sales, boosted power plant emissions by 4.7 percent, the report said. Environmentalists said the report was in line with projections for emissions growth under current policies, and said it showed the administration's program for industries voluntarily to reduce pollution has failed. Industry groups said it showed that just getting emissions back to 1990 levels would cause painful economic disruptions. "It's true that there are some underlying economic trends, but there are also real differences in policy," Christopher Flavin, of the Worldwatch Institute, said. "We're doing very little. The Clinton administration's climate plan has had an almost insignificant effect so far." "What it says is there is a need to begin on an early reduction strategy. If we don't, it will become even more difficult to start turning the trajectory around," said Carol Werner, of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. But a spokesman for an industry-labor-agriculture coalition opposing a climate change treaty said the report showed "a rollback to 1990 levels will spell economic ruin." "There is no free lunch for stabilization. The American people are going to pay dearly," said Richard Pollock, of the Global Climate Information Project. That group has run an advertising campaign against a climate treaty. With 1997's emission growth, the United States would need about a 25 percent cut in emissions to meet the European Union's target of a 15 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2010, Flavin said. The EU, currently just about 1 percent over 1990 levels, would have a far easier task, he said. The administration has called the EU plan too drastic and praised Japan's proposal for industrialized countries to set a 5 percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels as a goal for the years 2008 to 2012, but not have fully binding targets. .