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Leading scientists call for global warming treaty
September 30, 1997
Web posted at: 10:00 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT)WASHINGTON (Reuter) -- Days before a White House conference to fight global warming, 1,500 scientists from around the world Tuesday urged immediate action to curb man-made climate changes.
"Let there be no doubt about the conclusion of the scientific community: the threat of global warming is very real and action is needed immediately," Nobel laureate Henry Kendall said at a conference on global warming, sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists which he chairs.
"It is a grave error to believe that we can continue to procrastinate. Scientists do not believe this and no one else should either," said Kendall, who also authored a statement signed by the 1,500 scientists from 60 countries.
The scientists, including 98 Nobel laureates, urged world leaders to adopt a strong treaty to fight emissions of carbon from burning fossil fuels that are changing the climate.
Without swift action, they said the world faces a future of rising sea levels, more intense storms and droughts, food shortages, spreading diseases and vanishing wildlife.
"This is a wake-up call for world leaders. Never before has the senior scientific community spoken so boldly on the urgent need to prevent disruption to our climate," said Nobel laureate Dudley Herschbach, a Harvard University chemistry professor.
President Clinton is hosting a conference October 6 to try to generate support for a treaty that commits industrialized countries to specific reductions in carbon emissions that scientists say are accumulating in the atmosphere and trapping heat.
But lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday remained skeptical of benefits of a climate change treaty, and doubtful of a treaty's potential effects on the U.S. economy.
"We can't be sure that we would be doing the environment any good since science still can't identify the human fingerprint in the observed warming," Senate Energy Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski said at a hearing on the issue.
His committee heard from the United Mine Workers of America, the conservative Cato Institute think tank and other witnesses that said a climate change treaty could cost the United State more than 1.5 million jobs by 2005, limit the nation's electricity supply, and trim the Gross Domestic Product by up to $17 trillion from 2005 to 2015.
Committee members from both parties also complained that the White House failed to send a representative to defend its position, or explain how the administration intends to reduce carbon emissions.
"It is outrageous that our State Department can negotiate a new treaty with 164 other nations that will have tremendous economic implications for our nation, but they cannot come to Congress and defend their position," Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said.
"Instead we are here with no administration analysis and no administration witness a mere 20 days from the next round of negotiations in Bonn and 61 days from Kyoto," he said.
Negotiations for industrialized countries to agree to cut emissions from burning fossil fuels are to end in December in Kyoto, Japan.
"A climate change treaty that exempts developing countries is an unfair and flawed approach," Sen. Wendell Ford, a Kentucky Democrat, said. "My own state of Kentucky would be devastated" by such a treaty, Ford said of his coal-producing state.
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Related stories:
- Clinton caught between promises, politics in clean air battle - June 24, 1997
- Global warming on back burner as summit ends - June 22, 1997
- Global warming must be addressed, scientists warn - September 20, 1995
Related sites:
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- Environmental Protection Agency
- Global Warming Home Page - from the Cooler Heads Coalition
- What is the Greenhouse Effect? - from the Cooler Heads Coalition
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