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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (2900)	2/17/2002 4:34:25 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15516

Environmenalists Want Promises " The governing council of the Cartagena conference said there had been progress on U.N. conventions on climate change, biological diversity and desertification, but steps remain to be taken at the coming summit to ensure agreements are put into force." Kept Fri Feb 15, 9:27 PM ET By RICARDO MALDONADO, Associated Press Writer CARTAGENA, Colombia - Wrapping up a three-day meeting, global environmentalists Friday called for action to counter unkept pledges by world governments to reduce global warming and protect the environment. Environmental ministers and other officials from more than 120 countries met in this Caribbean port city to prepare for this summer's U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, said to be the biggest U.N. gathering ever planned. The conference was site of a rare agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites). The warring sides agreed to assess the environmental damage done in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) through pollution of water supplies and waste dumping. "If we are to live together on this piece of land, we need to respect the shared natural resources here," said Yousef Yousef Abu Safiehm, the Palestinian environment minister. Valerie Brachya, an Israeli environmental official, said two sides ceased contacts on such issues when violence broke out in September 2000, and she hoped the agreement would "renew cooperation." On broader issues, the delegates said many pledges have been made since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, but "there remains an alarming discrepancy between commitments and action." "There has always existed the suspicion that they were very good protocols, but unfortunately we can't guarantee their application, their observance, because they are not obligatory," Klaus Topfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told a news conference. The private Worldwatch Institute said recently that 1.12 billion people lack access to adequate clean water, and that during the 1990s, carbon dioxide emissions - the so-called greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming - climbed more than 9 percent. The governing council of the Cartagena conference said there had been progress on U.N. conventions on climate change, biological diversity and desertification, but steps remain to be taken at the coming summit to ensure agreements are put into force. The gathering is set for Aug. 26-Sept. 4 in Johannesburg, South Africa and will focus on reshaping the global economy to make it less damaging to the environment while spreading wealth to underdeveloped and developing regions. story.news.yahoo.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (2900)	2/17/2002 5:05:31 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Going for Kyoto : It is right to aim high even if America lags " For the same reason we should not wait for the US to wake up fully to its responsibilities. Mr Bush's first post-Enron energy statement yesterday was a big disappointment. Instead of recanting and adopting the Kyoto pledges he is offering business tax incentives to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas omissions that is likely to fall woefully short of the 33% reduction sought at Kyoto". Leader Friday February 15, 2002 The Guardian There is no contesting the need for a big increase in the use of renewable energy resources like wind and sea power and for an equal need to use energy more efficiently, as urged in yesterday's report to the prime minister by the performance and innovation unit. Britain has more potential for exploiting renewables than any other country in Europe and - with the government now backing it - there need be no problem about achieving the target of 20% of electricity generation from renewables by 2020, as long as investment is available. The target of a 40% improvement in domestic energy efficiency is more difficult, but achievable with fiscal incentives. These policies alone will not deliver the Kyoto commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions, but they are needed whether we have international obligations or not. The days of oil self-sufficiency, thanks to the North Sea bonanza, will be replaced by increasing reliance on imported oil and gas, much of it from potentially unstable regimes in the Middle East. Although the report has kept options open about nuclear power (as well as coal), it is unlikely that the markets will be busting keen to finance any new nuclear stations, especially if they are required to finance the cost of decommissioning. All this still leaves a lot of work to be done to clean up carbon emissions from cars, aircraft and coal-fired power stations. If there is one serious criticism of the report, it is its suggestion that the speed at which Britain moves is dependent on international cooperation. This is a recipe for moving at the pace of the slowest participant. Industry is not unnaturally worried that the price of being too progressive will be diminished competitiveness. But much of the extra cost to businesses would be offset by the benefits of Britain being a pioneer in the development of technology and techniques that could then be sold to the rest of the world. For the same reason we should not wait for the US to wake up fully to its responsibilities. Mr Bush's first post-Enron energy statement yesterday was a big disappointment. Instead of recanting and adopting the Kyoto pledges he is offering business tax incentives to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas omissions that is likely to fall woefully short of the 33% reduction sought at Kyoto. Without the US on board, it will be impossible to fulfil the Kyoto targets (unless the US achieves its targets perversely by building more nuclear capacity). But that is no reason to dilute our own ambitions. This is one area where Britain, and the rest of Europe, can show a moral lead that the US could be shamed into following. guardian.co.uk

To: Mephisto who wrote (2900)	2/17/2002 5:19:35 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Poor Marks on the Environment The New York Times Editorial January 28, 2002 One of the president's assistants said recently that if Mr. Bush chose to model himself on anyone, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. As regards environmental policy, surely an important component of Roosevelt's legacy, we fail to see the comparison. Roosevelt started the national wildlife refuge system. Mr. Bush sees the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a source of oil. Roosevelt greatly expanded the national forests. Mr. Bush would shrink important protections for those forests. For conservationists, Mr. Bush's first year was a big disappointment, yielding little more than a few promises. It's possible that he may yet do good things for the national parks, despite his fixation on letting snowmobiles roam as free as the bison in Yellowstone. He has also promised full funding for the government's main land acquisition program, and promoted the redevelopment of contaminated industrial sites known as brownfields. On most major issues, however - clean air, clean water, the protection of the public lands from commercial exploitation - he has retreated or signaled retreat from the policies of his predecessor. Unless Mr. Bush himself alters course, the prospects for improvement are zero. That is because he has filled nearly all the critical posts where policy is hatched and regulations written with people who regard the environment as a resource to be exploited and who have earned their keep representing logging, mining, oil, livestock and other interests. The one faint hope in this dreary landscape is Christie Whitman, the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency. But apart from a brave decision directing G.E. to clean up the Hudson River, Mrs. Whitman has essentially been running in place. A big victory for her is upholding a rule written in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, the field is littered with broken promises. The biggest was Mr. Bush's abandonment on March 13 of his campaign promise to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. This decision foreshadowed his withdrawal two weeks later from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, as well as the unveiling in May of his broader energy strategy, which favors precisely the same fossil fuels that are believed to cause the warming problem. There were less dramatic betrayals as well. At his confirmation hearings, for example, Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged to defend as the "law of the land" a landmark Clinton-era rule barring logging and other forms of commercial development in 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest. Mr. Ashcroft's lawyers have since done almost nothing to defend the rule against court challenges from industry, a failure that has encouraged the timber lobbyists who now run the Forest Service to proceed with their parallel campaign to destroy the roadless policy by administrative means. Mr. Ashcroft's negative handiwork is everywhere. Three days after Mrs. Whitman upheld a Clinton rule protecting wetlands, his lawyers opened settlement talks with developers seeking to weaken the rule. That, in turn, can only encourage the Army Corps of Engineers in its parallel efforts to undermine other aspects of wetlands law. Such are the destructive synergies at work in the Bush administration. The only person who can turn things around is Mr. Bush, so strong is the mindset of his retainers. Will he? At the moment, he is riding high, and issues like the environment do not loom large. Yet ever since the landmark conservation laws enacted three decades ago under another Republican, Richard Nixon, Americans have demonstrated a commitment to environmental values that transcends party. In times of conflict or economic crisis, this commitment recedes. But it always comes back, and politicians who ignore it pay dearly. nytimes.com