U.S. Seeks to Scuttle Conference Text Linking Climate Change to Disasters
By Charles J. Hanley
The Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=6975
Friday 21 January 2005
Kobe, Japan - The U.S. delegation to a global conference on disasters
wants to purge a U.N. action plan of its references to climate change as a
potential cause of future natural calamities.
The U.S. stand reflects the opposition of the Bush administration to
treating global warming as a priority problem.
"It's well known that there's controversy" about the consequences of
climate change, deputy U.S. delegation head Mark Lagon told reporters Wednesday
at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction. "It's our desire that this
controversy not distract this conference."
The chief U.N. official here had a different view.
"I hope there will be a global recognition of climate change causing more
natural disasters," said Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for
humanitarian affairs.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-organized network of
scientists, said in its latest major assessment of climate science that the
planet is warming and that this is expected to cause more extreme weather
events, such as hurricanes and droughts, as the century wears on.
A broad scientific consensus attributes much of the warming to the
accumulation of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide
from fossil fuel-burning. The Kyoto Protocol, which takes effect Feb. 16,
mandates cutbacks in such emissions, but the United States, the biggest
emitter, has rejected that international pact.
In its preamble, the "framework for action" drafted for adoption at the
Kobe conference on Saturday says climate change is one factor pointing toward
"a future where disasters could increasingly threaten the world's economy, and
its population." Other passages call for strengthening research into global
warming and for clear identification of "climate-related disaster risks."
The U.S. delegation, supported by Australia and Canada, has called for all
references to climate change to be deleted from the main document. The move is
opposed by the 25-nation European Union - a strong supporter of the Kyoto
Protocol - and by poorer nations potentially imperiled by the intensified
storms, rising ocean waters and other effects of climate change.
The Bush administration has held fast to its rejection of mandatory curbs
on greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming, although Environmental
Protection Agency administrator Mike Leavitt says that climate change is not an
issue the White House dismisses. In December 2003, the administration said it
was planning a five-year program to research climate change.
With global warming, millions more Bangladeshis could be displaced from
low-lying coastal regions when oceans expand and rise as they receive runoff
from melting ice.
"We feel there will be more calamities unless there is some action on
climate change. The number of natural hazards will increase," said Siddiqur
Choudhury, a delegate from Bangladesh, where a half-million or more people were
killed by cyclones in 1970 and 1991.
Egeland, the U.N. emergency coordinator overseeing the relief effort for
the Indian Ocean earthquake-tsunami, which killed more than 160,000 people last
month, said the world has seen "a dramatic increase in hurricanes, storm surges
and climate-caused natural disasters."
In an Associated Press interview, he noted that he hasn't been involved in
the floor debate over document language. But, he said, "there is climate
change. That is not really controversial. What is controversial is what causes
climate change" - a reference to dissenters who contend the role of greenhouse
gases may be overstated.
John Horekens, the U.N. conference coordinator, said he saw room for
compromise on the language: Inclusion of a brief reference to climate change in
the action plan, and additional references in a less significant annex.
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