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ARMS Email SystemRECORD TYPE: FEDERAL (NOTES MAIL)
CREATOR: Chad Carpenter <[email protected]> ( Chad Carpenter <[email protected]> [ UNKNOWN
CREATION DATE/TIME: 9-DEC-1998 19:17:17.00
SUBJECT: Climate News - 9 December 1998
TO: "[email protected]"" <[email protected]> (""[email protected]" <climate-
[email protected]> UNKNOWN]
READ:UNKNOWN
TEXT:
1) US EPA ASKS BUSINESS TO JOIN GLOBAL WARMING FIGHT (Reuters)
2) EAGERLY, TOKYO JUMPS INTO EMISSIONS TRADING (Inter Press Service)
3) IEA CALLS FOR NEW POLICIES TO CURB CLIMATE CHANGE (Reuters)
4) LAND USE IMPORTANT IN CLIMATE SHIFTS (Boston Globe, NY Times)
5) MENEM URGES INCREASED INVESTMENT (Japan Times, Buenos Aires Herald)
6) LINK DESERTIFICATION TO BIODIVERSITY, CLIMATE AND WATER (UNEP)
7) BIG OIL: THE CULTURES (New York Times)
8) ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEE NO GOOD IN EXXON-MOBIL DEAL (Reuters)
9) PRESIDENT SAYS DETERMINED TO SEE OIL FLOW (Reuters)
10) HUNGARY TO LIBERALIZE ENERGY SECTOR (Central Europe Online)
11) WORLD BANK CALLED ON ENERGY LENDING POLICY (ENN)
12) FRENCH EYE POLISH ENERGY PRIVATIZATION (Central Europe OnLine)
13) PUSH FOR CLEANER CARS ACCELERATES (Detroit News)
14) CHINA ACCELERATES ALTERNATIVE FUEL AUTO INDUSTRY (Muzi News)
15) MEXICO CITY ORDERS CARS OFF THE ROAD DUE TO SMOG (Reuters)
16) EVS FOR RENT: A NEW POWER TRIP FOR ALTERNATIVE DRIVERS (LA Times)
17) EARTH AT ITS WARMEST IN PAST 12 CENTURIES (Washington Post)
18) U.S. BASKS IN WARMTH (MSNBC, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald)
19) OZONE HOLE JUST LASTS AND LASTS (BBC News)
20) ARCTIC WARMING THREATENS POLAR BEARS, U.N. TOLD (CNN Interactive)
21) PENGUINS IN PERIL (BBC News)
22) TRUE NORTH MAY BE WARMING (CBC News, Toronto Star)
23) GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE STILL HAZY (USA Today)
24) SCIENTISTS TACKLE GLOBAL WARMING AT PARIS MEETING (Science Daily)
25) GROUP WARNS ABOUT DANGERS TO OCEAN (CNN Interactive)
26) OLD GROWTH FORESTS MAY SHED LIGHT ON GREENHOUSE EFFECT (MTU)
27) WARMING MAY CREATE SHIPPING LANE (Miami Herald)
28) RESEARCHERS SEE GLOBAL WARMING INCREASING FIRE DANGER (UniSci)
ON THE WEB
29) CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT (Johns Hopkins)
30) SAFE CLIMATE, SOUND BUSINESS (BP, General Motors, Monsanto & WRI)
31) POPULATION, CONSUMPTION AND CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS (PAI)
32) RISING SEAS, COAST EROSION AND THE TAKINGS CLAUSE (Maryland Law)
33) EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESS RELEASE ON COP-4
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
34) HOT AIR ON CLIMATE CHANGE (Washington Post)
35) GETTING TO WORK ON GLOBAL WARMING (NY Times)
36) GREEN TAX REFORM INITIATIVES (Environmental Science & Technology)
37) RETHINKING ENVIRONMENTALISM (ENN)
38) US SENATE SHOULD NIX KYOTO PACT (Journal of Commerce)
39) INVEST IN ALTERNATIVES TO OIL (International Herald Tribune)
40) WARMER AND WARMER (Washington Post)
1) US EPA ASKS BUSINESS TO JOIN GLOBAL WARMING FIGHT.
Reuters
7 December
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/new/news/07129813.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner
Wednesday asked business leaders to consider voluntary efforts to curb
greenhouse gas emissions, even as the issue of global climate change
remains a subject of heated debate. Browner spoke before a National
Association of Manufacturers conference, marking the first time a high-
level Clinton Administration official addressed a business trade group
since the U.S. signed the Kyoto climate change treaty.
In November, the White House authorised the Kyoto signing, but
President Clinton has not submitted the agreement for Senate
ratification as the deal faces strong opposition from congressional
Republicans and industrial state Democrats. The administration agrees
with the view held by many of the world's scientists that greenhouse
gases emissions are at least partly to blame for the earth's warming,
which poses severe threats to the environment and public health.
Treaty opponents doubt the science used to substantiate what would be a
radical shift in the world economic structure, and point to the
estimated loss of millions of American jobs and businesses if the
nation were to meet emissions targets. Under the Kyoto pact, industrial
nations must cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels by
an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels in the period 2008-2012.
Browner applauded British Petroleum for taking the lead on setting
goals for emissions cuts in their own operations, and said more
companies are joining the effort. "I would hope that it will be
possible to have discussions about components of this issue - for
example emissions trading credit programme, early credit for companies
who do something sooner rather than later - while we still debate the
science " Browner said. "I would hope that there is a way to look
at some of these issues in the short-term, find some common ground,"
she said.
Finalising the Kyoto pact into a workable arrangement lagged during
November climate change talks in Buenos Aires. The U.S. wants to
establish a system of trading in pollution allowances so rich nations
can buy them to shift a share of their required emissions reductions to
cash-hungry nations that pollute less. The European Union and other
nations scoffed at the idea, saying the U.S. must work harder to cut
their actual emissions, and not simply buy out of the treaty.
Browner said the issue of international caps, emissions trading and
other disputed parts of the climate change debate should not delay
early action by U.S. manufacturers, saying the risk of not doing
anything is far greater than waiting. "Where people want to make
voluntary commitments, we want to look at how to give them credit. We'd
like to encourage voluntary behaviour," Browner said. Legislation has
been offered in the House and Senate on so-called early action credit
programmes.
2) EAGERLY, TOKYO JUMPS INTO EMISSIONS TRADING
Inter Press Service
December 7, 1998
Internet:
http://businessjournal.netscape.com/network/export/stories?
template=bf4.ft&story=x1204510.1ps&topic=472&date=19981207
TOKYO - Japan is gearing up to enter the lucrative business of trading
in greenhouse gas emissions, prompting experts to predict that the
world's second richest country will soon become a leading player in
this trade.
"Japanese companies have the money and expertise to put them into the
forefront of a new business called environmental trading, a business
that is growing attractive for it offers a practical solution towards
reducing pollution," says Naoki Matsuo of the Institute of Global
Environmental Strategy, a think tank set up in January under the
environment agency.
Russia features high on plans by Japanese business to cash in on
emissions trading, because as a developing country Russia's standards
for cutting the production of greenhouse gas emissions are much lower.
This scheme allows rich nations to pay countries producing less
greenhouse emissions, in exchange for bits of their quotas for
producing carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas produced by the
burning of fossil fuel.
This trade in emissions -- which some call equivalent to buying the
right to produce more harmful greenhouse gases -- was approved at the
third meeting of parties to the United Nations framework convention on
climate change, in Japan in December 1997. Environmentalists say Japan
will also start looking into the Asian market under another U.N.
agreement, called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), that allows
developing countries into the emissions trading market.
"Under the CDM, developed countries can start projects in developing
countries to earn credits for themselves and developing countries. In
addition, the system allows the credits to be traded with rich
countries which is what Japan is aiming for," explains Yurika Ayukawa
of World Wildlife Fund Japan.
Officials see emissions trading as a way of allowing Japan to meet
targets for reducing greenhouse emissions, while reducing the economic
burden on local companies. By "buying" emissions, Japan can achieve its
carbon dioxide reduction target faster than waiting for cuts gained
through reductions at home or joint-implementation projects, they say.
No official figure has been given, but environmentalists quote some
studies as saying it would cost Japan around $20 to reduce per of tonne
of carbon dioxide if traded with Russia, compared to around $200 when
achieved internally. "Against such a backdrop we can see why carbon
dioxide trading holds a huge attraction to the Japanese government and
Japanese companies," says Ayukawa.
Japan's carbon dioxide emissions have grown by 10 percent since fiscal
1990. Businesses that promised voluntary reduction targets said this
month that 28 industries recorded emitting 133 million metric tonnes of
carbon dioxide. Thus, they have set back target dates for reducing such
emissions from 2000 to 2010. The emissions trading scheme with Russia
was proposed by former Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto when
he met President Boris Yeltsin in April, under an economic pact that
includes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Japanese firms are expected to invest in Russian projects to cut
emissions at home, and subsequently count the reductions as part of
Japan's. Japan has committed itself to an emission target reduction of
6 percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Russia, owing to its
lower level of economic development, is required only to maintain
emissions at 1990 level by that period. It has room to spare in meeting
its quota of greenhouse emissions.
"Japan is looking at Russia and the Ukraine because of their potential.
A huge country like Russia has much to offer when it comes to buying
carbon dioxide quotas because of its low emissions and large quota,"
explains Matsuo. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry
(MITI) has a budget of $18.5 million for this year to carry out
feasibility studies in Russia.
The New Energy Development Organization, a firm affiliated with MITI,
has been set up to monitor the trade in emissions. This includes not
only trading emissions for cash, but also developing joint
implementation projects that require Japanese environmental technology
toward reducing global warming in Russia, in return for credit for
Japan.
For a start, Japanese companies, such as electrical and gas firms, will
help solve problems of ageing Russian oil refineries. They will also
help the country move away from industries that produce harmful
emissions and encourage the use of gas instead of fossil fuel. Major
Japanese trading companies are already involved in the sale of carbon
dioxide with Russia, acting as the go-between the buying and selling
companies.
But while emissions trading comes in handy for the government,
environmentalists are not in the least happy. They point out that
emissions trading with Russia does not mean lower carbon dioxide
production, but only shifts it to a low energy policy. Critics also see
holes in emissions trading, which could be implemented by rich
countries on assumptions that can actually increase carbon dioxide
output. Ayukawa adds that the existence of emissions trading does not
mean governments and communities can rest easy on developing low-
polluting, renewable energy like solar and wind power.
Besides, green groups say, global warming can be stopped only through
reductions on the part of the biggest polluters like the United States,
which had proposed the emissions trading scheme. Activists fear that
emissions trading shifts the focus on trading, rather than on projects
that aim for actual and definite reductions in greenhouse gas
production.
Yuri Onodera of Friends of the Earth Japan says pressure from powerful
electric and oil corporations -- to preserve their commercial interests
-- are pushing Tokyo to support emissions trading as the best way to
meet the country's reduction targets. "It's business as usual even when
it comes to global warming," he says. But Matsuo says it is "nonsense"
to go along with green groups, supported by the European Union, which
call for domestic reductions before trading. "They are just not
practical because reductions at home are very difficult and not cost-
effective. The policy must focus on reduction both at home as well as
with other countries," he explains.
3) IEA CALLS FOR NEW POLICIES TO CURB CLIMATE CHANGE
Reuters
Dec 4
Internet: http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/981204/5p.html
WASHINGTON, - World energy demand and greenhouse gas carbon emissions
will grow sharply in the next 20 years if major policy changes are not
enacted by national governments, the International Energy Agency said
on Friday. Greenhouse gases are blamed by many scientists for trapping
heat in the earth's atmosphere, helping to cause a global warming trend
that could radically alter the world's environment and trigger a slew
of health problems related to increased heat and pollution.
In a new report, the IEA disclosed the path that future energy demand
and supply would take if climate commitments made in the Kyoto Protocol
were not instituted. Without the required policy changes, energy demand
will grow 65 percent between 1995 and 2020, and carbon emissions by 70
percent, the IEA said. Two-thirds of the increases could occur in China
and developing countries, the IEA predicted.
Under the pact negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, last December, industrial
nations must cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels by
an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels in the period from 2008 to
2012. Using 1990 as a base, instead of 1995, the IEA report said world
greenhouse gas emissions could rise 75 percent above the levels the
Kyoto treaty commitments are based.
"There are many possible combinations of energy saving and fuel
substitution that would meet the Kyoto commitments. But all involve
large deviations from past energy trends. Major new policies and
measures need to be put into place urgently by governments to meet the
Kyoto objectives," the IEA said. In November, the U.S. signed the
Kyoto treaty, but President Clinton has not submitted the agreement for
ratification by the U.S. Senate, as the deal faces strong opposition
from congressional Republicans and industrial state Democrats.
Talks held last month in Buenos Aires to finalize the accord stumbled
on Washington's desire to establish a system of trading in pollution
allowances, and the lack of an agreement on how developing countries,
like China and India, would curb their own carbon emissions. European
Union nations and others want the U.S. to cut their actual emissions,
and not simply buy out of the treaty.
Agency projections show fossil fuels are expected to meet 95 percent of
additional global energy demand from 1995 to 2020, with only marginal
changes in the mix of oil, natural gas and coal usage. Output from
nuclear power plants is seen remaining stable to 2020 as the
commissioning of new facilities broadly matches plant retirements.
Hydropower growth is expected to be limited by the lack of good sites
and environmental considerations.
``Electricity generation from renewable energy sources is growing fast,
but without post-Kyoto policy changes, it will still represent less than 1 percent of world electricity generation by 2020,"
the IEA said.
The agency suggested that new designs for less costly nuclear power
plants, acceptable long-term solutions for radioactive waste disposal
and a reduction in the unit cost of renewable fuels -- like wind and
biomass are needed.
The IEA said world oil production from conventional sources could peak
during the period 2010 to 2020, but said there would be no shortage of
liquid fuels since reserves of unconventional oil are large. "The oil-
importing countries' dependence on supplies from the Middle East will
increase until liquid fuels from unconventional sources -- shale oil,
tar sands, conversions from coal, biomass, gas -- begin to play an
important role as 2020 approaches," the IEA said.
4) STUDY: LAND USE AS IMPORTANT AS EMISSIONS IN CLIMATE SHIFTS
Boston Globe
12/09/98
Internet:
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/wirehtml/343/Study_Land_use_as_important_as_emi.shtml
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Intensive farming, logging and other landscape
changes play a major role in the world's climate, say scientists who
also report that the 20th century is the warmest in 1,200 years.
Wholesale changes in the land coincide with rising temperatures and
rainfall shifts in a role equal to that of the usual suspect of global
warming - industrial pollution from factories, power plants and
traffic. The conclusions, discussed Tuesday at the meeting of the
American Geophysical Union, were based on computer model simulations
and field observations across the globe, from South America to Africa
to Florida.
The findings suggest that international guidelines under negotiation to
control climate change by limiting industrial emissions may also need
to target farmers, loggers and developers. ``Land use is a significant
contributor to climate change," said climatologist Jonathan Foley of
the University of Wisconsin. "It's as important as what you do to the
climate when you double carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
In a separate study, researchers at the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration said the 20th century is the warmest in the
past 1,200 years. They based the conclusion on ancient climate
information trapped in cores from glaciers and ocean sediments sampled
around the world. The warming trend coincides with land-use changes on
several continents as human populations grew and farming expanded,
researchers said. "Twentieth century warming is real," said NOAA's
Jonathan Overpeck.
Foley's examination of the Amazon River basin in Brazil found that
cutting down the rain forest not only reduces its ability to store
carbon dioxide, but the bare land left after deforestation cannot
return as much water to the atmosphere. Annual rainfall is reduced by
as much as 20 percent in some places, according to a computer
simulation by Foley and scientists in Brazil. "The ability of the land
to cool itself is diminished," he said.
In southern Florida, swamp draining for construction and farming this
century raised local temperatures by an average of at least a half-
degree, said Roger Pielke, a Colorado State University atmospheric
scientist who co-authored the study. That's sufficient to be considered
more than the climate's natural variability. Summer precipitation is
reduced by 10 percent after the landscape changes, he said. ``Perhaps
the wildfires this summer in Florida were exacerbated by the degree of
landscape change," Pielke said.
Similar changes were observed in southeast Asia, north Africa and other
locations. Stripped land that once was covered by vegetation cannot
store heat, and releases it into the atmosphere, upsetting the climate
balance, said Elfatih Eltahir, an environmental engineer at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Climate change isn't always
limited to drier conditions, however. The switch in the past century
from prairie to irrigated farmland in Texas and Oklahoma has resulted
in an increase in thunderstorms there, Pielke said. The authors also
said more study is need to see how changes have contributed to climate
shifts over long periods of time.
See also
Study Looks at Landscape Changes, New York Times, 9 December, Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Warmer-landscapes.html
5) MENEM URGES INCREASE IN INVESTMENT
Japan Times
3 December
Internet: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/news12-98/news12-3.html
Argentine President Carlos Menem urged business leaders Thursday to
promote investment in the republic to help correct a trade imbalance
between the two countries. Later in the day, Menem spoke at a Tokyo
business forum commemorating the centenary of the signing of a friendly
treaty between the two countries. He questioned why Japanese are
reluctant to do what they can in investing in Argentina.
Citing his efforts to shift Argentina from an inflation- and
corruption-ridden state to the current stabilized market economy in the
past decade, Menem urged the Japanese side to invest capital in farming
as well as new innovative industries. "I expect this centenary to serve
not only as a historical ceremony but also an opportunity for Japan and
Argentine to invigorate their exchanges," Menem said before an audience
of about 360 people, including senior government officials, business
leaders and consultants from both sides.
Menem went on to ask Japan to participate in Argentina's effort to
create global free trade areas beyond the realm of Mercosur, a Latin
American open economic zone consisting of Argentina and three other
countries and two associated nations. The Argentine president said that
Mercosur is aiming to make a free trade agreement by 2005 with the
European Union, while trying to create a free trade network across
North and South America.
See also,
JAPANESE, ARGENTINE LEADERS CALL FOR CLOSER BILATERAL TIES, Buenos
Aires Herald, 7 December, Internet:
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/thisweek/arg2.htm
6) LINK DESERTIFICATION SOLUTIONS TO BIODIVERSITY, CLIMATE AND WATER
ISSUES
UNEP News Release 1998/126
9 December 1998
Dakar/Nairobi - Calling the Convention to Combat Desertification a
powerful weapon for reversing dryland degradation, the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) is encouraging governments to seek
synergies between the Convention and other major environmental
agreements.
The most effective actions for preventing dryland degradation are often
the same actions needed to protect biological diversity or minimize the
risk of climate change," said Klaus Toepfer, Under-Secretary General of
the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP.
"By bringing these distinct but interlinked issues together in their
national policies, governments can heighten the impact of their
national investments while boosting their fund-raising potential," he
added.
Ministers and high-level officials attending a meeting of the
Conference of the Parties to the Convention here in Dakar are exploring
how to promote more financial and technological support to programmes
for combatting desertification. The opportunities provided by this
approach are illustrated
By the recent decision of the multi-billion-dollar Global Environment
Facility (GEF) to fund anti-desertification projects if they also
address one of the GEF's four focal areas - biodiversity, climate
change, international waters, and ozone depletion.
For example, the GEF is funding a $12.2 million, five-year project to
rehabilitate the degraded land along the border between Mauritania and
Senegal. This project, which is being implemented by UNEP and the
United Nations Development Programme, will seek to protect biodiversity
by targeting five critical ecosystems encompassing 60,000 square
kilometres.
Another GEF-funded UNEP project will rehabilitate indigenous vegetation
in the degraded rangelands of Africa's arid zones, particularly in
Botswana, Kenya, and Mali, while yet another will rehabilitate degraded
lands and biodiversity in Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
A UNEP/GEF desertification project whose funding depends on climate
change benefits is taking place in the pastoral areas of Benin, Burkina
Faso, and Niger. Because trees and other plants absorb and store the
greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere, returning dryland
vegetation to health simultaneously enhances "carbon sinks" and thereby
reduces climate change.
Another illustration of the policy links between desertification and
other environmental issues is the issue of water resources. Several
weeks ago, at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, the African Ministers
Council on Environment (AMCEN) highlighted the importance of the
integrated management of river, lake, and hydrogeological basins to the
implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification.
The bio-physical processes of biodiversity, climate change and
desertification are intimately intertwined. Climate change will affect
the drylands by influencing heat extremes, water supplies, soil
humidity and temperature, and agricultural production. It will also
threaten biological diversity on land and in the sea.
As climate zones shift poleward during the 21st century, the composition
and geographic distribution of ecosystems will change rapidly. Species
that cannot migrate and adapt quickly enough will not survive. At the
same time, deforestation and dryland degradation are influencing local
climates, the global carbon cycle, and the albedo, or reflectivity, of
the earth's surface.
Biodiversity and desertification are also related to each other.
Dryland degradation affects not only agricultural productivity but
natural vegetation, wildlife, and soil fertility. The loss of
biodiversity likewise undermines the environmental health of drylands
and makes them more vulnerable to human and natural pressures.
Fortunately, the three issues are also linked by common solutions. For
example, combating deforestation reduces net carbon dioxide emissions,
land degradation, and the loss of biodiversity.
Similarly, the introduction of renewable energy technologies can cut
greenhouse gas emissions while easing pressure on the land and the
forests by providing an alternative to limited fuel wood supplies.
Based on a mandate from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, governments
negotiated the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and
adopted it in 1994. The Convention on Biological Diversity and the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were adopted at
the Earth Summit. Together, the three treaties are often referred to as
the Rio conventions on sustainable development.
Note to journalists: For interviews or more information, please contact
Michael Williams at the conference center press office, or on portable
phone 6333387. Additional information about UNEP is available at
www.unep.org and at www.unep.ch.
7) BIG OIL: THE CULTURES
New York Times (excerpt)
December 2, 1998
The bosses at Exxon and Mobil, in short, have markedly different
styles, making their proposed alliance seem an odd match indeed. Not
that it would be a marriage of equals, though. It is Raymond (Exxon)
who would put a far bigger stamp on the combined company.
Raymond may well fall behind Noto (Mobil) on diplomatic skills. He has
been in the forefront, for instance, in speaking out on global warming,
insisting that it has not been proved scientifically. As chairman of
the American Petroleum Institute, the industry trade group, he has been
the point man in trying to head off attempts to limit emissions of
carbon dioxide, which would almost surely force industries to cut down
on oil consumption. And he has not been afraid to be blunt about it,
causing an uproar at a meeting of the World Petroleum Congress last
year for his views.
"Some people seemed astonished that someone would actually stand up in
public and point out some of the scientific uncertainties and damaging
economic consequences of the proposals under discussion," he said at
the gathering.
In dealing with the varied groups claiming damages from the Exxon
Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989, he has often taken a tough line to keep
claims down. He was also willing to take the heat for having Exxon go
through a continuing long and costly appeal of a $5 billion jury award
in the case, even though many people said Exxon should have simply paid
it.
As for today's challenges, Noto and Raymond might be the ideal team.
Noto was in Saudi Arabia from 1977 to 1985, making friends with some
current Saudi leaders. And Raymond has the resources and skills to put
projects together. Between them they may find a way back into the
country with by far the largest oil reserves in the world.
8) ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEE NO GOOD IN EXXON-MOBIL DEAL
Reuters
3 December
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/new/news/03129802.html
LOS ANGELES - Environmentalists see little upside in the planned $76
billion merger of Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp., two oil industry titans
they say have next to no commitment to renewable energy. "Exxon and
Mobil tying the knot is like getting married on the Titanic. We are
running out of sky, not oil," said Gary Cook, legislative director of
Greenpeace's climate campaign in the United States.
Exxon said it would acquire Mobil in a record $76.2 billion deal that
will create the nation's biggest company and the world's largest oil
producer. But environmental groups said the merger bodes ill for the
world's climate, which many scientists believe is threatened by heat-
trapping emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
"Exxon and Mobil have both worked against international efforts to
control global warming," said Fred Krupp, executive director of the
Environmental Defence Fund. "It's troubling to see that the world's
biggest oil company will be made up of big opponents of greenhouse gas
reduction." Mobil said last month it continued to oppose a treaty meant
to deal with climactic changes from industrial pollution since "there
is time to fix the problem without causing worldwide economic harm."
Many analysts have attributed the Exxon-Mobil deal to a need to cut
costs as oil prices have tumbled but several environmentalists said
exploration in Alaska and elsewhere has continued to boom.
"We are asking all oil companies to at least shift investment away from
looking for new oil and into energy services and renewable sources,"
Greenpeace's Cook said. Adam Kolton, director of the Alaska Wilderness
League's arctic refuge campaign, said, "It is hard to imagine that this
is being brought about by low oil prices. It is being driven by the
bottom line." Exxon is one of the major Alaskan producers.
Even compared with other oil companies, Exxon and Mobil are remarkable
for their reluctance to admit the possibility of global warming, the
environmental groups said. "At least Shell and BP recognise the science and are making investments - albeit nominal
ones - in renewables," Cook
said. British Petroleum, which sometimes calls itself the world's
largest solar energy company, has committed to invest $50 million in
renewable energy in coming years, a tiny piece of its $1.5 billion
budget for oil exploration, but still a start, Cook noted.
In addition, Amoco Corp., which is merging with BP, is a 50-percent
partner with Enron Corp. in Solarex, one of the world's largest
producers of solar photovoltaics, which convert sunlight into
electricity, Greenpeace noted. Krupp noted that Exxon and Mobil have
opposed the Kyoto Protocol, which has been signed by at least 60
nations, although it has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. Kolton
at the Alaska Wilderness League noted that Exxon was responsible for
the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 - often called the worst
environmental disaster in American history - in which 11 million
gallons of crude oil leaked into Alaska's Prince William Sound.
The 10-year anniversary of that disaster will be next March, and Exxon
is already gearing up to convince the public that Prince William Sound
has recovered, Kolton said. "We are hoping that government regulators
will look beyond the glitz and the spin to take a good look at the
threats to the environment from this merger," he said.
9) PRESIDENT SAYS DETERMINED TO SEE OIL FLOW
Reuters
3 December
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/new/news/03129806.html
N'DJAMENA - Chad's president, Idriss Deby, marked eight years in power
on Tuesday with a pledge to see the impoverished country's oil wealth
start flowing and an appeal to environmental protesters not to block
the project. Deby, in a speech broadcast by state radio from the
southern oil town of Doba, urged the local population not to pay heed
to domestic and foreign opponents of the project, which aims to bring
the oil on stream by 2001.
"We are determined to produce the oil of Doba. The oil is the property
of all Chadians and the revenue from the Doba oil will be used to
improve the living conditions of all Chadians," he said from the
capital of southern Logone Orientale region. "I ask the people of Doba
to denounce all those who plot against the production of the oil, above
all those who from near or from afar incite the population to oppose
the production of the oil," he added.
Deby, a Moslem northerner who took power in a 1990 French-backed coup,
returned to the arid former French colony on Sunday after hospital
treatment in Saudi Arabia for an intestinal problem. He made no mention
of his illness in the speech. Deby won presidential elections in 1996.
Since he took power, Chad has experienced a period of relative
stability after over a decade of civil war and conflict with Libya.
In his speech, he said that peace deals with rebel groups had improved
security, attributing lingering insecurity to bandits. "Now that peace
has been restored following peace accords signed between the government
and the rebel movements, I undertake to crack down on highway robbers
who continue to terrorise peaceful citizens," he said.
Chad has a southern Christian minority. At least two rebel groups
operated in the Doba region. National Assembly member Yorangar
Ngarlejy, who is from the Doba region and opposes the project, was
jailed for three years in June for defamation. The conviction followed
suggestions he made that Deby wanted to keep the oil project in the
family.
10) HUNGARY TO LIBERALIZE ENERGY SECTOR
Central Europe Online
Dec. 09, 1998
Internet: http://www.centraleurope.com/ceo/business/nevs/98120904.html
BUDAPEST, Dec. 09, 1998 -- (Reuters) Hungary will introduce a new
pricing system for its electricity and gas market next year and look
gradually to liberalize the sector in line with European Union
standards, Economics Minister Attila Chikan said on Tuesday. Chikan
said the new pricing system -- without quarterly adjustments -- would
take effect on Jan. 1 and the ministry would disclose details before
Christmas.
"It is fundamentally an opening towards competition," he told a news
conference, after a draft document was agreed by the economics
ministry. "Consumer interest, efficiency, safety and accession to the
European Union are the key elements of the concept." Hungary's center-
right government, which took office in July, promised to review the
energy pricing system that consisted of quarterly price adjustments by
the Economics Ministry based on recommendations of the Energy Office.
The quarterly pricing was supposed gradually to deliver the previous
government's promise of an 8 percent return on equity for investors who
bought into the energy sector in a $2 billion sell-off in 1995 and
1996. The previous Socialist-led government postponed an energy price
rise in March, just ahead of the elections, and another in June, saying
it did not wish to make commitments that would have to be fulfilled by
the next government.
The new government also postponed the quarterly price rise due in
October and said it would revise the entire concept by the end of this
year. Chikan said Hungary would move toward liberalizing its market
along requirements of the European Union, but said the EU's guidelines
coincided with domestic interests.
"We will make changes according to the inner development rhythm of the
economy," he said. Hungary will introduce an experimental opening of
the electricity market in 2001 that would include power suppliers'
access to the national grid currently under Magyar Villamos Muvek's
(MVM) monopoly, Chikan said.
"All market participants must be given free access to the
(distribution) network," said Peter Honig, deputy state secretary at
the Economics Ministry. He said the experiment would give some large
customers the right to choose their energy supplier. Under the present
system Hungarian power plants sell the electricity they generate to
MVM. Honig said the ministry was also studying the possibility of
similar steps in the gas market where oil and gas company MOL holds a
monopoly on gas wholesale.
11) WORLD BANK CALLED ON ENERGY LENDING POLICY
ENN
Wednesday, December 2, 1998
Internet: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1998/12/120298/bank.asp
The World Bank is being criticized for not doing enough to promote
renewable energy projects, like photovoltaic lights, in developing
countries. The World Bank, the public financial institution charged
with the task of poverty alleviation and sustainable development, is
under pressure to reform its lending policy when it comes to energy
projects in developing nations.
"The bank currently lends 25 times as much money for fossil-fuel energy
projects as it does for renewables," said Daphne Wysham, lead author of
a study on the World Bank's compromised role in mitigation of the
climate change treaty. The report, put out by the Institute for Policy
Studies, a Washington, D.C., based think tank, has helped generate
enough of a stir that the World Bank last week decided to delay its
approval of the Prototype Carbon Fund until further consultation with
non-governmental organizations and others.
Details of the carbon fund made headlines at last month's climate talks
in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when a document surfaced detailing the
World Bank's plans to take control of the multi-billion dollar carbon
trading market being set up under the Climate Change Convention.
According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the World Bank would
fund fossil fuel projects in poor countries on one hand, then reap
financial benefits from the resulting pollution on the other hand
through a controlling interest in the $150 billion a year carbon-
trading market.
The institute sees this as a conflict of interest on the bank's part
because instead of working toward its mandate of poverty alleviation
and sustainable development, it is working out lending schemes which
benefit wealthy oil, gas and coal corporations headquartered in one of
the wealthy Group of 7 nations. The new plants bring very little, if
any, energy to the 2 billion poor people in the world who currently
live without it because the plants are constructed for the benefit of
the urban middle-class and energy-intensive industries who move in to
take advantage of the cheap power, said Wysham.
It turns out, according to the Institute for Policy Studies' report,
that many of the same corporations that benefit from the World Bank's
lending policy are also members of the Global Climate Coalition, a
United States lobbying group that works to prevent any action by the
United States to reduce its share of greenhouse gas emissions.
The biggest problem, according to Wysham, is that this lending policy
is focused on the fossil fuel industry even though the World Bank's own
reports conclude that renewable energy projects are the most effective
means of meeting the needs of those without power. Besides, fossil fuel
energy sources lead to greater climate change and, according to Wysham,
the World Bank has acknowledged that climate change has the greatest
impact on the world's poor.
"The World Bank's energy lending portfolio is dominated by fossil
fuels. More than three-fourths of all its energy lending is spent on
oil, gas and coal or power projects that use these fuels, making it the
largest multilateral financier of climate-changing fossil fuels in
developing countries," the institute's report says.
This rhetoric from the Institute for Policy Studies was echoed in a
letter to President Bill Clinton from Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-
Ohio, and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., on June 18. "The World Bank has
helped finance 87 fossil fuel based projects. These projects are
expected to produce one and a half times more CO2 emissions than
today's annual global total. Has there been a comprehensive review of
these projects undertaken to determine whether renewable or clean
energy technologies could be substituted as energy sources?" Energy
experts familiar with the controversy surrounding the World Bank's
lending policy say the bank has acknowledged the concern of non-
governmental organizations and others and is trying to figure out a way
to reckon with those forces rather than heed their advice.
EDITOR'S NOTE: "The World Bank and the G-7: Still Changing the Earth's
Climate for Business - 1997-98" is available at
http://www.seen.org/wbstill/index.html. The report was produced by the
Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (Institute for Policy Studies,
USA) and the International Trade Information Service (USA)
12) FRENCH VIVENDI EYES POLISH ENERGY PRIVATIZATION
Central Europe On-Line
Dec. 08, 1998
Internet:
http://www.centraleurope.com/ceo/business/news/98120802.html?html
WARSAW -- (Reuters) French conglomerate Vivendi wants to take part in
the privatization of the Polish energy sector and has no pre-set
investment limits, the firm's deputy president for international
development said.
"Our group is present in energy production and. in principle we are
interested in the privatization of the sector (in Poland)," Marc
Boudier told a news conference on Monday. "We have no specific
investment limits. The only limit is profitability," he added. Boudier
said Vivendi's presence in Poland, through its Dalkia Termica
subsidiary has been made possible thanks to the liberalization of the
country's laws on energy. Poland will start liberalizing its energy
sector from the beginning of next year by introducing elements of a
free market in energy production and through privatization.
Poland wants to sell some 15 large power plants and possibly also
scores of small heating and power units, which often supply energy to a
single large recipient. For a transition period of 1-2 years the
government will keep control over energy prices through the state
Energy Regulation Office (URE). The government has set next year's
maximum rise of heating prices at 15 percent and at 11 percent for
electricity. Inflation is forecast to slow to around 8 percent in 1999
from around 9.5 percent this year.
URE estimates that the sector will suffer a loss of some ZI 2.6 billion
next year because of the gap between prices at which power plants
agreed to sell energy in long-term contracts and the price imposed by
the state. The price of one kWh in the contracts is at an average of ZI
137 while the current state price is Zl 112. URE also estimates that it
will take up to four years for the sector to return to black by
gradually raising prices and cutting costs at the same time.
Boudier said Vivendi was not put off by the temporary maximum price
increase limits. "This is not an obstacle in the privatization because
companies look at profits they will have in the future," Boudier said.
He added that in the Polish energy sector there was room for increasing
effectiveness and cost cutting through modernization.
13) DESPITE LOW GAS PRICES, PUSH TOWARD CLEANER CARS ACCELERATES
Detroit News
5 December
Internet: http://detnews.com/1998/autos/9812/07/12050032.htm
NEW YORK -- Efforts to develop cleaner-running automobiles are
accelerating despite a plunge in gasoline prices that has lured
millions of Americans into gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles. But the
push isn't turning out as planned. Government and industry have shifted
focus from electric cars, until recently seen as a main anti-pollution
tool, to hybrids that aren't as clean, but easier to make. At the same
time, regulators are tightening fuel-efficiency requirements for
today's dirtiest models.
These two trends are expected to usher in cleaner cars on America's
roads this coming decade, tidying up smoggy cities such as Los Angeles.
Less certain is whether the drive will help cut pollution that is
believed to cause global warming. A nearly two-decade-long drop in
gasoline prices has been threatening to set back clean-air efforts by
regulators. U.S. sales of new pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans
topped car sales in November for the first time as Americans' love
affair with roomier trucks continued to grow. One study shows fuel
economy ranks 35th on the list of attributes important to truck buyers.
Aggravating matters, the number of vehicles on U.S. roads nearly
doubled since 1970. Carbon dioxide emissions, which are believed to
cause global warming, jumped 20 percent between 1980 and 1996. The
Environmental Protection Agency has said that cleaner-burning vehicles
are needed to ensure that urban smog doesn't get worse. Technology is
starting to catch up to the problem, said several experts, potentially
offsetting the effects of the gas guzzlers on the road.
"People who just look at fuel price, who don't look at the technology
revolution, are missing the whole story," said Amory Lovins, director
of research at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit research
organization. He noted that a new breed of cleaner vehicles under development at virtually every car manufacturer is
expected to offer
more comfort, acceleration and other improvements over today's cars.
"People will buy them because they are better cars," he said, "for the
same reason people buy compact disks instead of phonograph records."
Electric cars have so far been seen as too much of a tradeoff for
consumers. This past year, California and New York backed off
requirements that 2 percent of all vehicles sold by automakers in their
states be non-polluting. Auto makers successfully argued there was too
little demand for battery-operated cars that required charging every
100 miles or so. In addition these cars were just too expensive,
particularly at a time of dropping gas prices.
But advances in battery technology are spurring other types of clean
cars that still rely partially on the automobile's century-old
combustion engine. Toyota Motor Co. announced last fall that it would
become the first automaker to market a hybrid gasoline-electric car
with its Prius. The car, which goes on sale in the U.S. in 2000, will
be four times cleaner than required by California standards and also
get 66 miles a gallon.
Other major car markers here and abroad have followed suit with plans.
One reason Japanese automakers have led the push: Gas prices there are
far higher than in the United States. "The majority of the industry is
working very hard on doing as much as we can to continue to reduce the
impact that the automobile has on air quality in the United States,"
said David Raney, manager of environmental and energy affairs for
American Honda Motor Co., which is working on a hybrid car that is 10
times cleaner than required by California.
Regulators also are stepping up efforts. Last month, California
drastically tightened emission controls on full-size pickups, vans and
sport utility vehicles, saying the growing popularity of the big-
polluting rigs has undermined the state's efforts to meet federal clean
air goals. Under new rules, emissions levels from SUVs must begin
coming down in 2004 and be as low as passenger cars by 2007. Other
states are expected to follow suit, with the federal Environmental
Protection Agency not far behind.
14) CHINA ACCELERATES ALTERNATIVE FUEL AUTO INDUSTRY
Muzi News
12/4/98
Internet: http://lateline.muzi.net/cgi/lateline/news?p=10985
BEIJING - The car industry in pollution-choked China is accelerating
efforts to develop vehicles which run on alternative fuels and electric
power, Chinese state media said on Thursday. China has about 6,000
vehicles which run on compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG) and intends to raise the number of such vehicles to
50,000 by the year 2000, the reports said.
``Developing environmentally friendly motor vehicle technology in line
with China's resources is highly significant for ensuring the
sustainable development of the nation's automobile manufacturing
industry," Xinhua news agency quoted Deng Nan, vice-minister of
Science and Technology as saying.
Taxis and buses in major cities would be the first vehicles to use
clear fuel technology. Beijing and other leading cities have already
moved to ban leaded fuel. Air pollution levels in Chinese cities have
worsened rapidly in recent years, prompting the government to start
monitoring and publicising weekly air quality levels for major
metropolitan areas.
``If the government started imposition of fuel tax starting next year,
there would be a rosy outlook for LPG or CNG-fuelled vehicles," the
official China Daily quoted Guo Qian, a spokesman for FAW-Volkswagen as
saying. China has already kicked off an agreement with Italy's
Italdesign to develop a concept for an electric car body and has
launched other joint ventures with foreign companies to develop
alternative fuel vehicles, Xinhua said.
A district in China's southern city of Shantou has been marked out as
the state testing and demonstration zone for electric vehicles.
Seventeen electric vehicles, including seven domestic-made, were being
test driven. However, lack of funds and technology are impeding the
commercialisation progress, the newspaper quoted Zhang Xiaoyu, vice-
director of the State Machine-Building Industry Bureau, as saying.
15) MEXICO CITY ORDERS CARS OFF THE ROAD DUE TO SMOG
Reuters
7 December
Internet: http://www.planetark.org/new/news/07129816.html
Mexico City authorities on Thursday ordered hundreds of thousands of
cars off the streets on Friday because of exceedingly high levels of
air pollution in a city notorious for its smog. Air pollution is a way
of life in greater Mexico City, where 18 million people live in a bowl-
shaped valley 7,350 feet (2,250 meters) above sea level. The geography
traps the emissions of 3 million automobiles and particles from all
manner of contaminants including heavy metals and fecal matter.
When air pollution exceeds a certain level on an obscure measuring
system, authorities declare an alert advising people against exercising
outdoors and ordering many cars off the road. School children remain
indoors all day. Except for the most recent model cars that pollute
less, all cars with license plates ending in an even number will be
barred from circulation Friday, said Roberto Rodriguez, a spokesman for
the Mexico City government.
"In addition 50 percent of all government vehicles will be prohibited,
with the exception of emergency vehicles like ambulances," Rodriguez
told Reuters. Under normal circumstances, all but the latest model cars
are banned from driving one day a week under the "day without a car"
programme designed to cut down on smog.
16) EVS FOR RENT: A NEW POWER TRIP FOR ALTERNATIVE DRIVERS
Los Angeles Times
9 December 1998
Internet: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/t000112327.1.html
Travelers at Los Angeles International Airport now have an alternative
to that gas-guzzling rental car: an electricity-guzzling rental car.
EV Rental Cars is set to open today at Budget Rent A Car facilities at
LAX, marking the first rent-by-the-day operation in the U.S. to offer
electric vehicles. The opening also represents the culmination of a
two-year crusade by EV Rental Cars President Jeffrey Pink to create a
way for drivers to try EVs without handing over the big bucks,
typically $400 to $500 a month, required with long-term leases.
The price of renting an electric vehicle at EV Rental Cars, whose
partners include Budget and the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power, will be comparable to that of many gas-powered vehicles. But
there's no refueling fee and no last-minute dash to a gasoline station
to top off the tank.
However, renters will be responsible for finding recharging stations
during their turns behind the wheel. EVs run about 70 to 90 miles
between charges, whereas a typical gasoline-powered vehicle can go 300
miles or more between fill-ups.
Battery-powered vehicles have been available commercially for two
years, primarily in California, but have met with limited success. Only
about 1,000 of the 3 million cars and trucks newly registered in
California in the last two years are electric. "None of these cars are
moving, because people don't know anything about them," Pink said. "It
is our hope that as consumers become more familiar with EVs through
ventures such as this one, they will be more inclined to lease them on
a long-term basis."
17) EARTH AT ITS WARMEST IN PAST 12 CENTURIES
Washington Post
Tuesday, December 8, 1998; Page A03
Internet:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/08/0641-120898-idx.hml
The warming of the Earth in this century is without precedent in at
least 1,200 years and cannot be fully explained by any known
combination of natural forces, one of the federal government's top
climate scientists said yesterday. New research that documents climate
change as far back as the Holy Roman Empire is strengthening the
argument that humans are partly responsible for the rising
temperatures, said Jonathan Overpeck, head of the paleoclimatology
program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"There is no period that we can recognize in the last 1,200 years that
was as warm on a global basis," said Overpeck, who presented his
findings at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San
Francisco. "That makes what we're now seeing more unusual, and more
difficult to explain without turning to a 'greenhouse gas' mechanism."
Overpeck made the assertion as the eastern half of the United States
basked in an extended December heat wave that has shattered temperature
records in dozens of cities. Although the warm spell is not, of itself,
evidence of global warming, a sharp spike in global temperatures in the
past two years has intensified the debate over humankind's contribution
to climate change.
New scientific findings presented in San Franciso appeared to
simultaneously add clarity and confusion to the debate. While some
researchers reported strong signals of human-induced warming in the
past century, other scientists acknowledged enormous uncertainties that
complicate the task of forecasting climate change in the future. One of
the speakers, James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, argues that scientists know too little about the
complexities of climate, such as changes in cloud cover, to make
accurate predictions. Hansen, who told a congressional panel in 1988
that the greenhouse effect "is here," caused a stir a month ago when he
wrote about those uncertainties in a prominent journal, The Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an
accuracy sufficient to define future climate change," Hansen wrote.
Overpeck, in his speech, said this century's warmer temperatures are
appearing more anomalous as scientists improve their understanding of
climate change in the past. Not only has the 20th century produced the
hottest years on record, he said, but the magnitude of change appears
to be without parallel since at least 800 A.D.
Until very recently, many scientists believed the Earth underwent a
dramatic warming in the Middle Ages, beginning around the 9th century
and continuing until nearly the 14th century. During the "Medieval Warm
Period," as it is called, temperatures rose throughout Europe and sea
ice retreated in the North Atlantic, allowing the Vikings to briefly
colonize Greenland. Global warming skeptics frequently cite the era as
one of the best known, historic examples of natural climate variation -
- proof, they say, that climate changes without help from people, and
that a little warming might even be beneficial.
But new research suggests the Medieval Warm Period never really
happened, Overpeck said. Based on evidence from ancient tree rings,
glaciers and other "proxy" measurements of past climate, the thaw
appears to have been limited to northern latitudes in Europe and North
America, while other parts of the globe saw little change in
temperature. The apparent cause of Europe's warming was a change in
ocean currents, he said.
"Our study of the Medieval Warm Period supports the likelihood that no
known natural phenomenon can explain the record 20th century warmth,"
Overpeck said. "Twentieth century global warming is a reality and
should be taken seriously." The average temperature at the Earth's
surface has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since the 1880s, with many
of the century's warmest years occurring in the past decade. Scientists
predict 1998 will surpass 1997 as the warmest year since record-keeping
began.
See also:
EARTH AT ITS WARMEST EVER, Toronto Star, 9 December, Internet:
http://www2.thestar.com/thestar/editorial/news/981209NEW31_FO-WARM9.html
18) MUCH OF U.S. BASKS IN WARM WEATHER
MSNBC
4 December 1998
Internet: http://www.msnbc.com/news/220520.asp
CHICAGO, Dec. 3 - Each day this week, as many as 20 major U.S. cities
are recording new warm temperature marks, and in many cases melting
away consumers' spending. Almost a week into the Christmas shopping
season, heavy coats and other winter apparel still hang on racks
throughout department stores. Analysts call outerwear sales "horrible,"
a dark cloud in an otherwise bright retail forecast. The weather-
related merchandise is spoiling Christmas a bit," said Dan Barry, a
Merrill Lynch retail analyst. "It's not going to make for a bad
Christmas, but it's going to spoil it a bit."
WARMEST YEAR IN 500 YEARS?
The warm spell is ending a year that could be the warmest in 500 years,
according to James Baker of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration. In Chicago, it's reached the mid-60s, giving travelers
little reason to book trips. Business at some travel agencies to warm
weather destinations is down 25 percent. "There's nothing to motivate
them to run so they're all doing their thing and our sales our down,"
said Kathy Prezas of Chicago's Apollo Travel. In Atlanta, it's
convertible weather as the mercury has reached 76 degrees. They're
still golfing in Minneapolis and basking in the sunshine in Portland,
Maine, where it's been a dozen degrees above normal.
SKI RESORTS HAMMERED
While New Englanders are saving on their heating bills, the warm spell
has crippled ski resorts. From Maine to Missouri, the slopes are barren
and brown, with temperatures so warm that even snow-making machines
can't help. Forecasters say winter, eventually, will arrive. Real snow
- not the machine-made kind - should make its way to the Midwest and
the Eastern Seaboard in the next two weeks. Soon, forecasters predict,
the jet stream, now hovering around the U.S.-Canadian border, will move
south.
"The zero-degree temperatures that are up in Canada will be moving down
to the northern tier of the states," said NOAA forecaster John
McGinley, "so it will feel like a lot more like winter." But until
then, at New York's Rockefeller Plaza, Zamboni driver David Meltzer
said he'll do what he can to protect the ice from 60-degree weather.
"I'm starting to get spring fever and it's December already," he said.
See also:
HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?, Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 December, Internet:
http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/98/Dec/05/local/HOTT05.htm
NORTHEAST BASKS IN UNSEASONABLE WARMTH, Miami Herald, 8 December,
Internet: http://www.herald.com/usa/digdocs/039907.htm
19) OZONE HOLE JUST LASTS AND LASTS
BBC News
4 December
Internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_227000/227972.stm
The Antarctic ozone hole has set a new record. It has lasted longer
than in any other year - for nearly 100 days. The World Meteorological
Organisation, a UN agency, says the hole measured 13 million sq km for
most of November. The WMO says this is the first time since tracking of
ozone levels began in the 1970s that the hole has measured more than 10 m sq km for so long. Between 65 and 90
degrees south, the WMO says, the
average ozone level was the lowest ever recorded for November.
Some good news
Overall, south of 60 degrees latitude, the ozone destruction was about
30% worse than the average for the last eight years. The good news is
that the hole in November was barely half the size it had been in
September. It then measured a record 25 m sq km, two and a half times
the size of Europe.
At the end of September, according to the WMO, ozone depletion was the
greatest ever observed for the time of year, and it covered a larger
area than ever before. The previous record hole, in 1993, measured 22 m
sq km. The average over the past few years has been about 20 m sq km.
The WMO says average ozone levels over the entire south polar area
during September were about 45-50% below normal.
But at higher levels, between 14 and 22 km above the earth, ozone loss
was 80-95% The ozone layer protects all life against the harmful
effects of the sun's ultra-violet radiation, which can cause blindness
and cancer.
New level of damage
While humans can take some precautions against exposure, there is
little to be done for animal or plant life short of stopping the damage
to the ozone layer. UV radiation is known to damage plankton, the
microscopic organisms which are at the base of the marine food chain.
Scientists at the University of Plymouth have reported that the
reproductive cells of plankton appear to be several times more
sensitive to UV radiation than mature cells. They say that 'the
ecological significance of elevated UV(B) exposure in the marine
environment may be seriously underestimated'.
Trouble in store
The ozone is being destroyed mainly by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
gases which used to be widely used in refrigeration and aerosols. Their
use is now banned in developed countries, but the developing world has
until 2005 to phase them out. Because they are so long-lived at high
altitudes, CFCs emitted years ago will go on causing damage for a long
time to come. There is even a thriving black market trade in smuggling
contraband CFCs across frontiers. Other ozone depleters include halons,
used in firefighting, and the fumigant methyl bromide.
An international agreement on protecting the ozone layer, the Montreal
Protocol, was signed in 1987. The WMO says there are signs that the
protocol is beginning to have an effect. But it will take at least
until the middle of the next century before the ozone has returned to
normal. Scientists expect things to go on getting worse for some years
yet before they start to improve.
20) ARCTIC WARMING THREATENS POLAR BEARS, U.N. TOLD
CNN Interactive
November 4, 1998
Internet: http://cnn.com/TECH/science/9811/04/polarbear.yoto/index.html
At the onset of United Nations climate talks Monday, Greenpeace warned
that the impacts of global warming are already appearing and
endangering species living in the Arctic especially polar bears. The
melting and retreat of Arctic sea ice has already had an affect on
polar bear habitat and may ultimately contribute to the extinction of
the species, the group says.
Scientists studying Arctic sea ice have recently documented significant
changes there and say the Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as
the rest of the globe, says Greenpeace. The Nansen Environmental and
Remote Sensing Center in Norway found a 4.6 percent decline in ice
extent and a 5.8 percent decline in actual ice area between 1978 and
1994. Polar bears feed nearly exclusively on ringed seals which they
hunt from the ice edge or through the pack ice itself. The bears do not
catch the seals in the water, but wait at holes for them to come
through the ice to breathe.
The retreat of the sea ice also means that more bears may become
trapped on or near shore in the summer and fall, and are more likely to
run afoul of humans and garbage dumps, or in the case of Alaska, with
the industrial complex associated with oil development on Alaska's
North Slope. In these encounters, the bears usually lose.
"If they lose their ice platform, we lose their habitat, and we're not
going to have any polar bears", said Dr. Charles Jonkel of the U.S.-
based Great Bear Foundation.
During a recent expedition to study wildlife populations, Greenpeace's
icebreaker, m/v Arctic Sunrise, carried scientists and campaigners to
the 'ice edge' in the Chukchi Sea, that part of the Arctic Ocean
between northern Alaska and Russia's Chukotka Peninsula. Normally at or
near the coast of Alaska, the ship had to sail more than 150 miles
north to find the edge of the ice.
"There certainly seems to be genuine increase in temperature, and I
think the temperatures are indicating that something's going on, said
University of Alaska Fairbanks Researcher Lori Quakenbush, who joined
the Greenpeace expedition. "There are two things that can affect polar
bears: one is a change in the number of ringed seals for them to feed
on and the other is a change in the accessibility of those seals. The
ice plays a big role in both of those things.
"The food chain in the Arctic is short. The algae that grows on the
bottom of the ice is eaten by zooplankton, which is'eaten by Arctic
cod, which are eaten by ringed seals, which are eaten by the polar
bears, and that's about as simple as a food chain gets. A change in the
environment can affect anything along the chain," said Quakenbush.
Scientists aboard the Arctic Sunrise were surprised by how far north
the ice edge had retreated. However, this fits with the findings of a
recent joint Canadian/American expedition where scientists were frozen
into the Arctic ice pack aboard a Canadian icebreaker north of Alaska
for more than a year. Scientists found the ice to be much thinner (1.5
meters at most, rather than the 2-3 meters that would be expected), and
much warmer and less salty due to recent melting of the pack.
Greenpeace's Arctic Expedition leader Steve Sawyer said, "The delegates
in Buenos Aires have to be reminded that climate change is not
something which will happen in the future, it is happening now, most
dramatically in the Arctic. The main cause is clear and undisputed.
Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil
fuels is accepted as the main cause of climate change by all scientists
save those working for the fossil fuel industry. Polar bears may be
some of the earliest victims, but the rest of us are not far behind."
For more information, contact Charles Jonkel, (406)728-9380.
21) PENGUINS IN PERIL
BBC News
December 5, 1998
Internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_228000/228378.stm
Penguin populations are taking a dive across the southern hemisphere
according to researchers attending an international penguin conference
in the United States. Scientists meeting at Boston's New England
Aquarium say most penguin colonies - except for five in Antarctica -
have declined in the past few years. They blame the decline on warmer
temperatures brought by the El Nino weather system as well as the
effects of pollution and tourism.
A combination of these factors has created a scarcity of food for the
penguins, impeded their breeding habits, and left them open to disease.
Most concern centres on the plight of the Erect-Crested and the
Galapagos penguins, which are considered endangered - meaning they have
an estimated 20% chance of extinction in the next 20 years. But other
species in South America are also considered vulnerable. Researchers
say the unusually warm weather brought on by El Nino could have
affected the penguins' breeding and feeding.
"It's important to know that penguins do not adapt like other birds,
such as gulls," said South Africa-based researcher, Robert Crawford.
"They can't fly and they can't feed behind boats. They're affected by
what happens on land, as well as what happens in the sea."
Environmental warning
Changing sea currents have altered the location of fish stocks and many
penguin colonies have gone hungry. But scientists say penguins, which
are easy to see and count, are also a good indicator of how other
species are being affected by climatic and environmental change.
"Things happening to penguins are a foretaste of things to come," says
Susie Ellis of the World Conservation Union.
Pollution and human contact have also taken their toll. In 1994, 10,000
penguins off the coast of Cape Town died following an oil spill. The
penguins' popular appeal has also proved damaging, with growing numbers
of tourists visiting penguin colonies and unwittingly disrupting their
delicate habitat. And since last year the Antarctic's colonies of
Emperor and Adelie penguins have both succumbed to a poultry virus
brought by humans. The infection has raised fears over the threat the
growing human population poses to the icy continent's fragile
ecosystem.
22) TRUE NORTH MAY BE WARMING
CBC News
Dec 3, 1998
Internet:
http://www.cbcnews.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/1998/12/03/weather981203
TORONTO - Scientists have been keeping records on temperatures for the
past 130 years, and 1998 will go down as the warmest year on record.
Why is there no snow in Winnipeg, why are golfers still yelling out
"fore" on the fairways in Toronto and how come Vancouverites are still
in shorts? In scientific terms, 1998 has been a "scorcher."
Every month so far this year has been the warmest on record In fact,
average temperatures in Canada have been so high that even a deep
freeze in December won't prevent 1998 from smashing records, says David
Phillips, senior meteorologist at Environment Canada. "I have never
seen anything like it in my 31 years of tracking this stuff. We didn't
just eclipse or beat out those records before, we shattered previous
warmest spring and summer records," Phillips said.
Last week, U.S. scientists reported that every month this year has been
the warmest on record. And it looks like 1998 may be the warmest year
this millennium. This year has been so unusual scientists are beginning
to wonder if we are witnessing a flip to a new climatic regime. It's a
scenario climatologists have discussed for some time but have
considered unlikely.
In the climatic-flip scenario, the climate does not change in a smooth
trend but jumps to a new state abruptly. The trend toward warmer
climates may be the first signs of global warming that scientists have
talked about for the last 20 years. If you're wondering whatever
happened to the record cold winter temperatures predicted by
meterologists because of La Nina, scientists now say they won't hit
until January or February.
See also:
HEAT PUTS BOOTS TO SKI SEASON, Toronto Star:
http://www2.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED19981205/news/981205NEW03_CI-WEATHER5.html
23) GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE STILL HAZY
USA Today
2 December
Internet: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/clisci/wc120298.htm
An international treaty has been written to take action against it.
Nations are taking costly steps to prevent it. Politicians are staking
their careers on it. But global warming, the subtle rise in the Earth's
temperature that promises to unleash a posse of natural disasters,
still is the subject of dispute and uncertainty. And that is reflected
in two recent scientific papers.
One of those papers is by climate scientist James Hansen, one of the
earliest and most outspoken of those raising the alarm about global
warming. His 1988 testimony to Congress that global warming was under
way brought the subject to the public eye. But in his new paper, he
shows some uncertainty about how fast and how much of the Earth is
warming. Hansen, of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, still
thinks that the Earth is warming. He also still thinks that humans are
part of the cause, because of the so-called greenhouse gases produced
by fossil-fuel use. The gases trap heat that would normally radiate
into space.
But in this article, published in the Oct. 27 issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, Hansen notes the scientific
ignorance about many of the factors affecting the world's climate. For
example, cars and power plants spout tiny particles of soot and other
pollutants into the atmosphere. These particles reflect sunlight and
affect cloud formation, thereby helping to cool the planet. No one, he
notes, knows how much effect this has.
Another puzzle he presents is the role of the sun. Greenhouse gases are
definitely helping warm the planet, Hansen says. But fluctuations in
the sun's energy also seem to be at work. Right now, the sun is adding
to global warming. But someday the sun might give off less heat than
now, thereby canceling some of the effects of greenhouse gases. But
whether that will happen, he notes, is unknown. Even so, "you still
have the concern that you'll have a very large climate change," Hansen
says. But given the big changes in knowledge in the past 20 year, he
says, "it's hard to predict over the next 100 years."
Other scientists agree, some pointing out even more uncertainties than
Hansen does. "We do the best we can," says Simon Tett, a climatologist
at Britain's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction & Research.
However, Tett and many other climate scientists still say that human
activity is warming the Earth into a fever. That point was stressed in
a paper in last week's Science. The author used a new technique to show
that greenhouse gases already are influencing the Earth's climate. The
paper also concludes that the 20th-century temperature record can only
be explained by taking into account both the sun and greenhouse gases,
undercutting the argument that the sun alone has caused this century's
warming. Still, scientists don't want to oversimplify the state of
knowledge, nor do they want politicians to do so.
Some scientists were uneasy about Vice President Gore's press briefing
in July when he noted that the first six months of 1998 each set
temperature records. "Although that's true, it gives the erroneous
perception that it's going to continue that way," says Michael
Schlesinger, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois-Urbana-
Champaign.
24) SCIENTISTS TACKLE CLIMATE VARIABILITY, GLOBAL WARMING AT PARIS
MEETING
Science Daily
30 November 1998
Internet: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/11/981130161544.htm
BOULDER--In a major agenda-setting conference that will guide much of
the world's climate research for the next decade, representatives from
over 60 countries will gather in Paris December 2-4 to examine
questions relating to natural climate variability, the human role in
global climate change, and the predictability of global and regional
climate.
The Climate Variability and Predictability Study (CLIVAR) of the World
Climate Research Programme is "the largest, most comprehensive
international climate research program ever undertaken," according to
Kevin Trenberth, co-chair of the CLIVAR scientific steering group.
Trenberth will deliver a keynote address on CLIVAR's recently published
implementation plan and on the evolution of CLIVAR science. He is also
head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder. NCAR's primary sponsor is the
National Science Foundation (NSF).
At the meeting, a large U.S. delegation, including representatives from
NSF, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will outline
the U.S. support and plans. The U.S. group is headed by Michael Hall
(NOAA's Office of Global Programs), who will give the closing keynote
address.
Attendees will define climate issues relevant to their own regions and
map out collaborative efforts to answer the most pressing questions.
Among the new research presented at the meeting will be
--The 1997-98 El Nino/La Nina--Ants Leetmaa, National Centers for
Environmental Prediction, United States
--Long-term climate variability and the detection and attribution of
anthropogenic effects--Suki Manabe, Japan
--Towards the prediction of monsoon variability--Victor Magana Rueda,
Mexico
--Decadal variability in the ocean-atmosphere system--Jurgen
Willebrand, Germany.
Created in 1993, the 15-year CLIVAR program focuses on the interaction
of the oceans and the atmosphere and their role in the earth's overall
climate. CLIVAR's goal is to enhance scientists' ability to predict
climate on both global and regional scales from a season to a century. Such predictions might warn Kenyan farmers of
heavy El Nino-related
rains that could drown crops, alert towns along the western Atlantic
coast of the projected intensity of the brewing hurricane season as La
Nina builds in the Pacific, or caution Indonesian brush burners of an
expected fire-prolonging drought.
The meeting will be held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) center in Paris. For more, please
contact Anatta at 303-497-8604; [email protected].
NCAR is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
a consortium of more than 60 universities offering Ph.D.s in
atmospheric and related sciences.
25) GROUP WARNS ABOUT DANGERS TO OCEAN
CNN Interactive
December 8, 1998
Internet: http://cnn.com/TECH/science/9812/08/wwf.yoto/
The oceans today are threatened by overfishing, marine pollution,
bottom trawling and global climate change. (ENN) -- As delegates arrive
in London for an international meeting on sustainable development, the
World Wide Fund for Nature is voicing concern for the ocean and warns
that a lack of political will by the world's governments may be the
biggest threat to the worlds' oceans.
"The world's oceans are in a perilous state," said WWF's Director
General Dr Claude Martin. "While some governments made measurable
progress during the past 12 months, most governments failed to take the
critical steps needed to manage this last wild frontier and to ensure
that its resources are safeguarded for future generations."
The agenda for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable
Development's annual meeting, scheduled for April 1999, is being
developed during the meeting this week in London. WWF is calling for
problems such as overfishing and marine pollution to be placed high on
the agenda and for governments to commit to implementing a global
network of marine protected areas.
The oceans today are threatened by overfishing, marine pollution,
bottom trawling and global climate change. The United Nations
designated 1998 as the Year of the Ocean and there have been many
meetings and pronouncements calling for reform, but not a lot of
action, WWF says. The organization is concerned that the issue will
fade from governments' radar screens once the Year of the Ocean
concludes.
Some governments have made concrete advances. Ecuador passed a law to
strengthen the Galapagos Marine Reserve, which extends 40 miles
offshore and outlaws industrial fishing in this area. In Turkey, the
government established six new marine protected areas to help safeguard
the endangered Mediterranean monk seals, and Portugal declared two new
marine protected areas earlier this year. Canada announced new measures
to protect the Gully, an underwater canyon off Newfoundland.
On the upside internationally, governments agreed to a timetable to
phase out toxic pollutants known as organotins, which are used in anti-
fouling paints on ships and known to affect marine biodiversity
worldwide. However, the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement -- which
sets new guidelines for high seas fishing -- has still not been
ratified by the majority of the world's leading fishing nations. The
European Commission has ratified the treaty, but it will not take
effect until each of the European Union member states has followed
suit.
26) OLD GROWTH FORESTS MAY SHED LIGHT ON WORLDWIDE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
Michigan Technological University
7 December
Internet: http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/mtu-ogfmsl.html
HOUGHTON, MI--Michigan Technological University researchers are
studying ecosystem responses to global climate change in old growth
forests in an attempt to find a part of the solution to the greenhouse
effect problem. Plants are important absorbers of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, which, in high concentrations affects global climate change.
Old-growth forests represent one plant community type which has not
been well researched for carbon, water, and energy exchange.
Dr. Jiquan Chen, associate professor in the School of Forestry and Wood
Products at Michigan Tech, heads a team of MTU researchers whose aim is
to determine the role of Pacific Northwest landscapes in the global
carbon budget. They measure the fluxes of carbon dioxide, water and
energy budgets at several managed forests in the Pacific Northwest to
offer baseline information on the roles of managed ecosystems in a
broader context of landscapes and in the cumulative effects of climate
change at landscape scales.
The data from a continued flow of carbon dioxide, water, and energy
budgets can help researchers understand and predict the role of
terrestrial ecosystems in global carbon and water budgets. In early
1998, Chen and his team began measuring the flows of carbon dioxide and
water on 550-year-old and 40-year-old Douglas fir forests at a research
site near the Wind River in southern Washington. Their initial data
suggested that both the old growth and the 40-year-old forest absorbed
more carbon than they released. However, the young forest had a much
higher carbon assimilation budget than the old-growth forest under
similar climatic conditions. In addition, the net carbon dioxide
absorption and releases in the young plantation can be several times
higher than in the old-growth forest under some extreme conditions.
Chen and his team have extended their current measurements to the non-
growth season (September 98-May 99) to compare the data between growing
and non-growing season, and find out whether young plantations are net
carbon sinks or sources to the atmosphere once annual carbon budget is
calculated. "This study is a part of the AmeriFlux carbon flux Network
and will collaborate with several studies at the Wind River site," he
said.
"Successful completion of this study will lead to a better
understanding of climate change and its effects on ecosystem
composition, structure, and function; and eventually will prepare us
better for the future management of the ecosystem," Chen said. The
project is currently being funded by a 3 1/2 year, $ 360,000 grant from
the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) and is
being carried out jointly with the University of California-Davis.
Contact: Dr. Jiquan Chen, e-mail: [email protected]; tel: +1 (906) 487-3432
27) WARMING MAY CREATE SHIPPING LANE
Miami Herald
5 December
Internet: http://www.herald.com/americas/canada/digdocs/089882.htm
OTTAWA -- Centuries after explorer Martin Frobisher risked his life
seeking it in vain, the dream of a Northwest Passage may yet come true.
Scientists say east-west shipping across the Far North could become
feasible as ice cover retreats under the powerful influence of global
warming. That forecast, based on the best computer modeling available
but still subject to high uncertainty, is contained in a massive
Environment Department report published Friday.
"One of the projections is that there will no longer be a consistent
ice cover in the Northwest Passage," said Roger Street, a researcher
involved in the report, The Canada Country Study: Climate Impacts and
Adaptation. Year-round shipping across the Far North would have great
potential benefits, but it would bring problems as well.
If the ice and permafrost melt, shores will be subject to year-round
erosion due to wave action and the ground itself could be unstable.
There would also be a risk of increased conflict with other countries.
Although Canada has long claimed the Northwest Passage as an internal
waterway, this has not been recognized by the United States.
That pattern of potential opportunities and complex trade-offs recurs
throughout the analysis of economic and social consequences likely to
result from climate change. The warming trend may boost Canada's
position in world agricultural markets because the growing season will
be longer, yields may improve and it may be possible to open new
regions to farming. But there is also a risk of more frequent droughts
and increasing pressure from the United States for water diversions.
"With the projected changes in climate there'll be less water
available," Street said. Like previous studies, this one warns there
may be increased risk of storms, drought and other extreme weather
events. It says the Canadian Forces may be called on more often to
assist in natural disasters.
28) RESEARCHERS SEE GLOBAL WARMING INCREASING FIRE DANGER
UniSci
7-Dec-1998
Internet: http://www.unisci.com/stories/19984/1207981.htm
Fire danger has long been linked to climate, with hot, dry spells
creating the highest risk. Concerns over the consequences of global
warming were rekindled this year by the impacts of El Nino. Droughts
linked to El Nino were followed by widespread, devastating fires in
Florida, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
"The latest predictions suggest that global warming may also create
conditions that intensify wildfire danger, by warming and drying out
vegetation, and by stirring the winds that spread fires," Berkeley Lab
researchers say in a new report. "Faster fires are much harder to
contain, and thus are more likely to expand into residential
neighborhoods, incurring substantial damage to insured property."
Against the backdrop of concerns raised in the aftermath of this year's
El Nino weather anomaly, the researchers with the U.S. Department of
Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have released the first-
ever analysis of the potential effect of global climate change on
wildfires in California.
"In most cases, climate change would lead to dramatic increases in both
the annual area burned by California wildfires and the number of
potentially catastrophic fires doubling these losses in some
regions," the researchers conclude. "These changes would occur despite
enhanced deployment of fire suppression resources, implying that
climatic change could precipitate an increase in both fire suppression
costs and economic losses due to wildfires."
Commenting on the study, U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said,
"This study is indicative of the mounting evidence that the potential
effects of climate change can be wide-ranging and very costly."
Other parts of the country might be just as vulnerable as California,
according to Margaret Torn of Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division,
one of the three scientists who conducted the study. "Our analysis
shows how big an impact climate change can have, and suggests that
future climatic conditions in other parts of the United States warrant
concern and study," she said.
The other scientists who conducted this study were Evan Mills, with
Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, and Jeremy
Fried, an associate professor of forestry at Michigan State University.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Nearly 85-percent of all catastrophe-related insurance payouts result
from natural disasters, with claims averaging about $10 billion per
year worldwide over the past decade. Wildfires are among the most
pervasive of all the natural disasters, especially for California.
According to studies by insurance agencies, of the 38 costliest U.S.
wildfires between 1825-1995, 22 were in California. The state also
ranks number one in terms of economic losses due to wildfire.
"These insurance exposures are increasing precipitously as human
developments encroach further and further into the urban/wildland
interface," Says Mills. "The $2 billion Berkeley/Oakland hills fire of
1991 is a notable example." To evaluate the potential effects of global
climate change on wildfire damage in California, the research team of
Torn, Mills, and Fried combined local weather and fire data, validated
fire and fire suppression models, and state-of-the-art general
circulation models of global climatic change." We tested the case in
which emissions of the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide,
double their pre-industrial levels -- a state of affairs projected to
materialize over the next five or so decades," says Torn.
Three regions in Northern California were examined, Santa Clara, the
Sierra foothills, and Humboldt. Each features a distinct climate, and,
together, harbor most of the vegetation types found in the American
west, including grass, chaparral (scrub or brush), oak savanna, and
mixed conifer and redwood forests.
Taking a conservative approach, the researchers only reported the
results based on the climate change model that, out of two tested,
predicted the least impact on wildfire. This model, from the Goddard
Institute for Space Sciences, provides standard scenarios for climate
change impact assessments used by government and university scientists
around the world. "Climate change would cause fires to spread faster
and burn more intensely in most vegetation types," the researchers
concluded in their report. These faster, hotter fires could be expected
to frequently escape containment, despite increased fire suppression
efforts. This would result in many more acres being burned than under
the current climate.
"The biggest impacts are seen in grass vegetation, where the fastest
spread rates already occur," says Fried. "In forests, where fires move
much more slowly, projected impacts are less severe." In their
modeling, Torn, Mills, and Fried found that the most severe effects of
global climate change were inflicted on the Sierra foothills where the
predicted number of potentially catastrophic fires increased by 143
percent in grassland and 121 percent in chaparral.
"With the number of escaped wildfires more than doubling, climatic
change could lead to a significant jump in fire damage in this region,"
the researchers reported. In the Santa Clara region, the number of
escaped wildfires increased by 53- and 21-percent respectively in
grassland and chaparral. Only in Humboldt, the third region examined,
which is characterized by redwood forests growing in moist, foggy
areas, was there little change in wildfire damage as a result of
climate change. Even here, however, the analysis projected that fire-
fighting costs would increase as a result of more intense fires.
Results of this analysis are being shared with the California
Department of Forestry (CDF), which has been cooperating with the
Berkeley Lab researchers throughout. Says Torn, "The CDF provided us
with all of the fire and analysis-zone data we used and kept us
informed about model updates. They have now begun to devote some time
to this topic themselves." Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy
national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts
unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of
California.
ON THE WEB
29) CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN HEALTH INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT WEB (Johns
Hopkins)
The Climate Change and Human Health Integrated Assessment Web, at
http://www.jhu.edu/~climate/, provides recent and relevant information about the potential impacts of climate change
through integrated
assessment. This web site aims to appropriately characterize and
communicate current scientific research to support policy development
and analysis.
30) SAFE CLIMATE, SOUND BUSINESS (BP, General Motors, Monsanto and WRI)
This report, at http://www.wri.org/cpi/scsb/index.html, was produced by
British Petroleum, General Motors, Monsanto, and the World Resources
Institute. They explored a variety of aspects to help understand the
nature of the challenge and possible policy responses. They looked at
scenarios to meet future world energy demand that show increasing and
stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations, and explored new
technologies and potential business opportunities.
The project led to three principal conclusions:
.Climate change is a cause for concern, and precautionary action is
justified now.
Business can contribute to climate protection efforts in substantial,
positive ways by helping to develop sound climate policies, by
providing the research and technologies needed to address the
challenge, and by taking actions to reduce and offset their own
emissions.
Flexible and market-oriented climate policies that implement national
commitments can address the long-term need to stabilize the
concentration of greenhouse gases. Such policies can facilitate a Safe
Climate, Sound Business outcome by stimulating innovation, early
action, and cost-effective reductions. These policies can also product
multiple co-benefits and reduce the risk of climate change caused by
human activities.
31) UPDATE ON POPULATION, CONSUMPTION AND CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Population Action International
Profiles in carbon: an update on population, consumption and carbon
dioxide emissions by Robert Engelman. Profiles in Carbon argues that
the large disparities in per capita greenhouse gas emissions are
central to the population-climate linkage. The report brings together
year-by-year data on national populations and carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions from fossil fuels to produce profiles of per capita CO2
emissions for 179 countries over a 45-year period. The study also ranks
the 145 countries with populations of more than one million by their
1995 emissions. The data include emissions from fossil fuel combustion
and cement production, but not those from biomass combustion or land-
use changes. Available from Population Action International, 1120 19th
Street, NW, Suite 550, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: +1-202-659-1833;
fax: +1-202-293-1795. The publication is also available on the web site
at http://www.populationaction.org/why_pop/carbon/carbon_index.htm
32) RISING SEAS, COASTAL EROSION, AND THE TAKINGS CLAUSE
Maryland Law Review is about to publish a detailed economic, legal, and
policy analysis of what people must do to adapt to global warming, as
well as existing problems associated with coastal erosion and rising
water levels. The paper is entitled, "Rising Seas, Coastal Erosion, and
the Takings Clause: How to Save Wetlands and Beaches without hurting
Property Owners." For a hard copy, please email me at
[email protected]. An electronic version is available at
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/reports/pubs/sealevel/takings.pdf.
(Disclaimer: the contents of this law review article do not reflect
EPA's official view on the matter.)
The article spotlights the possibility that even though people often
focus on the open ocean coast, it is the "hidden" bay coasts that could
experience the greatest deleterious changes as sea level rises; and
analyzes how to prevent rising seas from eliminating our estuarine
beaches and wetlands. The policies are explicitly guided by the fact
that future sea level rise is uncertain. The paper also provides the
first national exposition the "rolling easement," a term borrowed from
the common law of Texas.
32) EUROPEAN COMMISSION DG-XI PRESS RELEASE ON COP-4
November 14 1998
Internet: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg11/press/ba.htm
Climate change after Buenos Aires: The process to combat global warming
was reinforced and continues to move forward
Kyoto was a remarkable breakthrough - for the first time legally
binding reduction commitments of greenhouse gas emissions were agreed.
The European Union always knew that Kyoto would be a hard act to
follow. And always realised that there was no way that Buenos Aires
would be another quantum leap. The outcome of Buenos Aires must be
assessed on that basis. EU has been determined to show leadership - and
has worked very hard over the last week with other delegations -
notably the G77 and China to whom not enough attention was paid in
Kyoto. On this basis we managed to get a result which will continue to
move the process forward.
The EU wanted to keep the momentum from Kyoto. Keep the fight against
global warming firmly on the agenda with ordinary people. Ensure
continued participation from the business community. Continue to work
closely with environmental NGO?s. And make clear to political systems
across the world that they have no choice but to take global warming
seriously. The EU wanted to solve as many problems in Buenos Aires as
possible to get ahead with the work of transforming the legal
commitments from Kyoto into genuine greenhouse gas emission reductions.
And the EU wanted to adopt an Action Plan or Mandate to guide our
further work and to keep us on the fast track.
The Conference made concrete progress on a number of issues, such as:
.transfer of technology -where a 4 year deadlock has been broken. It
outlines a process on how to overcome the barriers to transfer of
environmentally sound technology and
.compliance - where there now is a common understanding by all Parties
that a strong and comprehensive regime is needed to ensure an effective
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol
.adaptation - where vulnerable countries will receive further support
from the Global Environment Facility to plan concrete measures to adapt
to adverse impacts of climate change
The Conference adopted a Buenos Aires Plan of Action, including
deadlines on a number of important issues, such as:
.financial mechanisms - which will assist the developing world to
respond to the challenges related to climate change,
.further work on policies and measures - which is now firmly
established on future conference agendas.
.development and transfer of technologies - which will assist
developing countries in not repeating environmental mistakes in the
developed world,
.rules governing the Kyoto mechanism S on emission trading, Joint
implementation and with a priority to the Clean Development Mechanisms
- which is essential to safeguard the environmental benefits of these
mechanisms,
.a solid promise to discuss number of particular concerns to the EU -
such as supplementarity, ceilings, long term convergence and equity.
At the close of the Conference Commissioner for the Environment Ritt
Bjerregaard said:
"We would have wanted to achieve more - you always do. But this was
what we could push the other Parties in the Conference to agree on. The
EU showed real leadership - supported to a large extent by the
Candidate Countries, G77 and China. We moved the process forward - and
it was uphill most of the way. But it could have been a whole lot worse
- and the outcome is not a total success for any one Party. Rather it
is a success for the global process - and at the end of the day that is
the only thing that counts. Nothing has been left out in the cold - and
all of the important issues for the EU can still be resolved in a
satisfactory way. The basic situation is unchanged: Climate change is
as important as ever. Global warming remains a serious threat to the
future of our planet. But we are continuing down the way to solve the
problem. We still need primacy of domestic action. We still need
genuine commitments from all industrialized countries. We still need to
work closely with developing countries in addressing their needs. We
need to continue the fruitful co-operation with industry. And we still
need to work further for strict rules on emissions trading."
The President of the Council, the Austrian Federal Minister for the
Environment, Youth and Family Affairs, Martin Bartenstein point out:
"In Kyoto, we agreed on concrete reduction targets of greenhouse gas
emissions of the industrialized countries. In Buenos Aires we kept the
momentum of Kyoto by establishing an Action Plan and deciding on other
important measures like the elaboration of a compliance system. We
furthermore reached agreement that the development of the Kyoto
mechanisms will be in parallel and priority is to be given to the Clean
Development Mechanism. Although the expectations from the public were
low, we adopted a well-balanced future-oriented program. The EU stays
determined to the process of elaborating a global climate policy, which
is based on the partnership of all countries"
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
34) HOT AIR ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Washington Post
Monday, December 7, 1998; Page A25
Internet:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/07/0121-120798-idx.html
By Stuart E. Eizenstat and Frank E. Loy
H. L. Mencken once said that "a cynic is a man who, when he smells
flowers, looks around for a coffin." In his Nov. 20 op-ed article,
"Kyoto Shell Game," David Victor demonstrates the relevance of
Mencken's dictum, stringing together a variety of criticisms as to why
last year's Kyoto Protocol will not work to control emissions of the
greenhouse gases that most scientists believe are causing global
warming.
Victor argues that the protocol will result in a financial windfall for
Russia and Ukraine; that the two-year plan agreed to at last month's
climate change conference in Buenos Aires for shaping the protocol's
operational framework is too short and finally, that the Clinton
administration is wrong to insist that developing countries participate
in meeting the challenge of climate change. None of these criticisms
survives close scrutiny.
The Kyoto Protocol is a market-based agreement that commits the
industrialized world to national targets that will result in an
aggregate 5.2 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990
levels by 2008 to 2012. Targets for the developed countries are
differentiated: Some must reduce their emissions below 1990 levels;
some, such as Russia and Ukraine, must freeze emission levels; others
are allowed emissions exceeding 1990 levels. Under the protocol's
emissions trading system, countries where it is relatively inexpensive
to meet the targets can sell emission allowances to countries where
reducing emissions is expensive. Similarly, the protocol's Clean
Development Mechanism allows industrialized countries to earn credits
by investing in clean-technology projects in developing countries.
Victor apparently concurs with most analysts that Kyoto's market-based
mechanisms are essential to meeting the challenge of climate change at
the lowest possible cost. These mechanisms also create incentives for
all countries to make deeper, faster cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
and to adopt better policies and clean technology.
What troubles Victor is that dramatic economic downturns in Russia and
Ukraine will give those nations a lot of emissions allowances to trade.
His point can be made more broadly: The European Union and Germany also
will find it easier to meet their targets because of lower emissions
resulting from the collapse of the former East German economy.
But the suggestion that these countries will receive a "windfall for
doing nothing" misses the point. First, Victor ignores the critical
fact that trading will give financially strapped economies strong
incentives to use cleaner technology and improve energy efficiency. One
of the crucial features of trading is that it provides a continuing
incentive for countries or companies to reduce emissions even if they
have met their targets, because they can sell their excess allowances.
Moreover, Victor's argument fails to appreciate that Kyoto's
combination of differentiated targets and market-based mechanisms for
meeting them was part of an ambitious, intensely negotiated framework.
Going back to square one and "renegotiating the whole Kyoto deal" -- as
Victor suggests -- makes no sense.
Victor also disdains the notion that effective systems for monitoring
and enforcement can be established within the two-year timetable agreed
to in Buenos Aires. But creating the structure for emissions trading,
while complex and arduous, is also both doable and necessary. Nations
need to know what they are agreeing to when they ratify the protocol.
Drawing on the experience of our own highly successful domestic acid
rain emissions trading program, the United States is committed to
building a trading system with integrity - not one that is "half-
baked" or a mere "shell game." Victor also ignores the fact that "full-
blown emissions trading" will not start until almost a decade from now
-- plenty of time to fine-tune the system.
Victor's more fundamental disagreement with the administration is that
our policy places too much emphasis on securing the participation of
the developing countries in the fight against global warming. He even
argues, "It is only proper that developing countries get a free ride
for now."
But the developing countries' participation in this fight is not a
political nicety - it is an environmental necessity. Early in the next
century, emissions from the developing world will surpass those from
developed nations. Moreover, Victor's free ride would be a costly
disaster for developing nations themselves. Environmental problems put
off today would strangle growth and devastate the environment tomorrow.
Argentina's pledge last month to take on a binding emissions target was
no "vague and irrelevant promise" but a commitment followed by one
from Kazakhstan and two of the small, vulnerable island nations -- that
represents a critical step on the path to greater participation of
developing countries.
Where Victor and the administration agree is on the need for the United
States to lead the way on climate change. The administration has
initiated or expanded more than 50 programs since 1993 that are
improving U.S. energy efficiency and accelerating research and
development into renewable energy sources. This fall President Clinton
secured more than $1 billion in funding for climate-related programs.
Next month he will request more from Congress -- aiming, as Victor
suggests, to "spawn new technologies" that will put us on a path toward
lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The writers are, respectively, undersecretary of state for economic,
business and agricultural affairs; and undersecretary of state for
global affairs.
35) BIG PROBLEM, BIG PROBLEMS: GETTING TO WORK ON GLOBAL WARMING
New York Times
December 8, 1998
Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/120898cush.html
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN JR.
WASHINGTON A year ago, representatives of more than 150 nations
faced a midnight deadline in Kyoto, Japan, for talks on an agreement to
cut emissions of the gases that scientists warn may be warming the
planet. After delegates caucused, argued, slumped and snored through
the night -- and toward lunchtime, a pact was reached when the
session's chairman decreed that an important conflict would be dealt
with later.
In November of this year, delegates from the same nations gathered in
Buenos Aires to set a timetable to carry out the pact. Afterward,
delegates were heartened by the progress they had made; they broke up
in time for breakfast, with a firm agreement to work a few more years
on the pact's biggest obstacles.
Such is the current status of the international effort to limit global
warming: the work that has been done has produced a consensus that
something will come of the Kyoto gathering. But the conflicts that
clouded the accord have not grown easier to resolve, and time is racing
by.
The United States, long the leading emitter of greenhouses gases, is
caught up in this delay. To be sure, the highlight of the Buenos Aires
conference was the Clinton Administration's signing of the Kyoto
accord. But the American representatives made it clear that they would
not submit the agreement to the Senate for approval until many of the
Administration's demands are met.
Negotiators at the conference settled on an ambitious two-year
timetable for resolving those and other sticking points. But that means
approval cannot come until after the 2000 elections, if it occurs at
all.
"Kyoto is not dead," said Eileen Claussen, a former State Department
negotiator who is the executive director of the Pew Center on Global
Climate Change, a public-interest group. "But I don't know if this can
be done in two years."
Michael Oppenheimer, a climate expert for the Environmental Defense
Fund, an advocacy group that favors the treaty, said: "If significant
progress is not made by the year 2000, we will never make the 2008'
deadlines of the treaty. We have to get the rules in place, or the time
will slip away."
Groups representing fossil-fuel producers and users are even more
skeptical. "I don't think the protocol is ever going to be ratified,"
said Connie Holmes, the chairwoman of the Global Climate Coalition,
which opposes the agreement. "In about 2001 or 2002, people are going
to say, 'My God, we can't do this, let's stretch this thing out.' You
need more time if you are going to change as radically as this."
Without the United States on board, the world will not meet the targets
of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for industrial countries to
drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012.
The United States is supposed to cut its emissions by more than a
third, to a level 7 percent lower than 1990. But the Americans are
insisting on commitments from the developing world, and on a complex
scheme for trading emissions permits and credits. "On all these issues,
the biggest obstacles are political, not technical," Ms. Claussen said.
"Technical people could sit down and work out the details. But it all
boils down to politics and sovereignty." Here are the main issues that
need to be resolved in the Kyoto Protocol:
The Third World's Role
PROBLEM: The United States and other developed nations account for
about 60 percent of industrial greenhouse gases given off each year.
But developing nations, led by China and India, are expected to catch
up in about 15 years. By mid-century, they will account for most of the
long-term buildup of gases that threaten the climate.
SOLUTION: The United States says that the least expensive way to head
off global warming may be to cut future emissions in other countries
overseas. To entice third-world nations to pursue such a path, America
favors a "clean development mechanism," which would give donor nations
credit for foreign aid or investments that cut emissions in developing
countries.
OBSTACLE: China and India are still resisting calls for big developing
countries to promise emissions cuts. African and Latin American
countries are more interested, but they want guarantees that they will
get their share of the aid.
OUTLOOK: "The monolithic phalanx that we saw in Kyoto in opposition to
any and all participation has completely broken down," said Stuart E.
Eizenstat, the chief American negotiator. In Buenos Aires, Kazakhstan
and Argentina agreed to commit themselves to reductions.
International Trading
PROBLEM: It will cost a lot of money to control greenhouse gases --
especially on the rapid timetable that the United States is being asked
to meet. If these costs are too high, the Senate will not support the
treaty.
SOLUTION: Many economists say the way to keep costs down is to let
countries buy and sell emissions quotas, making the deepest cuts where
it is cheapest to do so. The United States would be able to buy its way
into compliance with the treaty by paying other industrial countries,
like Russia, to cut emissions more than the treaty required.
OBSTACLE: European nations are the biggest opponents of unfettered
trading in emission credits. They are demanding that the United States
achieve at least a majority of its emissions reductions within its own
borders. Many third-world nations, too, have objected that it is unfair
for rich countries to buy their way out of treaty obligations.
OUTLOOK: Oppenheimer at the Environmental Defense Fund, which favors
emissions trading and other market-based pollution controls, says that
other nations, realizing how important trading is to the United States,
are "holding it hostage" as a bargaining chip. But schisms among
developing nations are weakening their resistance, and Europeans are
recognizing that they need to make concessions to the Americans if the
treaty is to work.
Credit for Early Action
PROBLEM: Every year that goes by without controls on greenhouse gas
emissions makes it harder for the United States and other industrial
nations to comply with their targets. Emissions in the United States
are currently 10 percent higher than they were in 1990; they rose 1.4
percent in 1997, and the Energy Department expects this trend to
continue for another 20 years.
SOLUTION: Many companies have already invested in energy saving and
other approaches to cut their emissions, or are planning to do so soon.
To encourage early reductions, legislation has been introduced to give
these companies credits for their reductions, which could be used or
sold if binding limits on emissions were imposed.
OBSTACLE: Many treaty opponents in Congress have fought policy
measures, like tax cuts. They have even fought voluntary steps that
suggest back-door implementation of an unratified treaty.
OUTLOOK: Big companies, even some that would prefer no binding limits
on emissions, are lobbying hard to get credits for early action, just
in case. "This is really the one area involving the whole issue of
greenhouse gases where I think everybody ought to be able to agree,"
said Todd Stern, the White House official who coordinates the
Administration's climate policy.
Finally, participants are wondering how the American Presidential
elections will affect the negotiating timetable -- especially the
aspirations of Vice President Al Gore, the world leader most closely
associated with the fight against global warming.
"How does the process of moving toward the year 2000 play with the
Presidential election campaign, and with President Clinton's known
desire to make progress before he leaves office?" Oppenheimer asked.
"Those questions are not imponderable, but they are very big factors,
and they make it very hard to figure out where the process will be two
years from now."
EDITOR'S NOTE: The New York Times is featuring a special section on
"The Natural World" at
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/index-natural.html
36) TAKING STOCK OF GREEN TAX REFORM INITIATIVES
Environmental Science and Technology
December 1, 1998 / Volume 32, Issue 23 / pp. 540 A-544 A
Internet: http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/est/98/dec/hanish.html
The call for carbon and energy taxes to control CO2 emissions has
sparked national and international debate. Since the Kyoto meeting,
carbon and energy taxes are becoming more popular in some European
countries as a cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. They are
also seen as a way to address problems of high unemployment. Tax
revenues are often used to reduce labor costs, a move that many believe
should strengthen economic competitiveness and combat unemployment.
But the environmental effects of control measures are proving difficult
to establish, and there are uncertainties about economic benefits. This
April, a Norwegian government white paper on national implementation of
the Kyoto Protocol outlined a concrete proposition on new green taxes
and indicated a general strategy to combat climate change. The planned
CO2 tax rates and a tax on waste disposal would reduce the expected
rise of emissions 3% by 2010. Although unemployment is not a problem in
Norway--the current rate is about 2%--energy-intensive industries are
facing international competition. "These industries are highly mobile,
and they are situated in places in Norway where they might be the major
employer," explained Knut Thonstad, deputy director general in the
Ministry of Finance.
Norway is not alone in the debate about taxation benefits. In Finland,
CO2 taxes (used since 1990) are part of the government's strategy to
reach the Kyoto goal. The tariffs have not yet prevented rising
emissions as a result of strong economic growth, and there have been no
comprehensive evaluations of environmental effects. Studies of economic
benefits of the taxes generally indicate positive effects on
employment. This is important in Finland where unemployment, although
decreasing, is still high. The rate was 10.2% in August.
Unemployment is also an important issue elsewhere. Political parties in
Germany have hotly debated the use of energy taxes as a means to fight
the country's high unemployment, which is more than 10%. However,
despite unemployment concerns, worries about competition in the
international marketplace have diminished prospects for introduction of
green tax reform initiatives. "We want a common EU-wide CO2 and energy
tax that is revenue neutral and doesn't have any exemptions for member
states," said Sigfried Breier, speaker of the Ministry of Environment.
This is not likely to happen soon, as a result of problems European
Union member states have had in seeking to reach unanimous agreements.
Also, warned Hans-Olaf Henkel, influential president of the Federal
Association of German Industry, even common European carbon taxes would
force industry out of the country. Germany shares a long border with
countries that are not members of the European Union. Henkel believes,
for example, that the cement industry would relocate to Eastern Europe.
To prevent the government from introducing new taxes, industry has
promised to voluntarily reduce specific CO2 emissions by 20%, based on
the 1990 level, by the year 2005. However, this step was forced by the
threat of a tax, and some researchers believe that industry promises
less than what will occur anyway in a business-as-usual scenario (1).
Green tax reform has begun in other Western European countries or is in
the process of being introduced. Generally, Western Europe is leading
in greening its tax systems, some Eastern European nations are trying
to catch up, and the rest of the world--if interested at all-seems to
be waiting and watching to see what experiences emerge.
Green tax trends in Europe
Strong tax measures in Norway
Norwegian emissions of greenhouse gases may not, according to the Kyoto
Protocol, exceed the 1990 emission level by more than 1% during 2008-
2012. Without the introduction of new control measures, however, it has
been calculated that in this period, emissions will rise by 20% above
the 1990 level. To prevent this from happening, the Norwegian
government's green tax proposition calls for CO2 taxation in sectors
that are currently exempt and an increase in the tax rate to 100 NOK
($13.3) per metric ton for nonexempt sectors where the rate is
currently lower. Government estimates suggest that the new measures
would reduce CO2 emissions by about 2 million metric tons. In addition,
to limit methane emissions, a tax of 300 NOK per metric ton of waste
delivered for final disposal is proposed. The additional tax revenues
will be used to lower taxes on income and labor, as well as to reduce
employer contributions to social security.
This June, the Norwegian parliament expressed support for many of the
principles of the government white paper. A majority of parties
accepted the waste tax and the extension of carbon taxes to air
traffic, domestic ships, and the supply fleet. "But they rejected the
introduction of CO2 taxes for previously exempted industries," said
Anne Beate Tangen, advisor in the climate and energy section of the
ministry of the environment. Instead, the parliament asked the
government to set up a public commission to evaluate a system of
tradable quotas for industry. The commission will address issues such
as quota distributions to existing firms and treatment of new firms.
Independently of these new plans, in July, the parliament (by approving
a proposal from the government) increased existing taxes on oil and gas
production on the continental shelf. The move is highly criticized by
industry. "The oil and gas industry pays about 3 billion NOK a year in
CO2 taxes," said Maiken Ims, director of public affairs of the
Norwegian Oil Industry Association. "This CO2 tax doesn't help the
environment because it goes anonymously into state finances. Companies
should instead negotiate agreements with the state. We would rather
spend money directly to improve the environment instead of paying a CO2
tax," she said.
The Norwegian government, on the other hand, believes that the CO2 tax
has been effective. It cites a study by Statistics Norway that during
the period 1991-1993, emissions from households, transport, and
mainland stationary sources may have been 3-4% lower than they would
have been without application of the CO2 tax. The price of heating oil
and petrol changed by about 15% and 10%, respectively, as a result of
the taxes (2).
Tax overhaul in Finland
Finland's reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions inside the
recently negotiated European Union bubble is a 0% change compared with
the 1990 level. In the EU bubble agreement the EU divides its overall
commitments for the period 2008-2012 among the member countries. To reach this goal, the country recently elevated
taxes markedly, and the
country's entire taxation system was changed.
Finland was the first country in the world to introduce a CO2 tax. It
did not differentiate between uses (electricity or heat production) or
between users, such as households and industry. Fuels (carbon inputs)
were taxed, but energy outputs (electricity) were not taxed. Timo
Parkkinen, senior economic advisor in the Department of the
Environment, thinks that this system was environmentally very effective
because it provided a strong incentive to choose low-carbon fuels for
electricity production.
After its entry into the European Union, however, the country had to
modify its system because it was infringing Community law. "Even more
important was that the competitive position of Finnish industry and
domestic electricity production was suffering from the tax system,
which was very different from that in the rest of Scandinavia," said
Jukka Saarinen, senior advisor in the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
To address this issue, since the beginning of 1997, electricity
consumption has been taxed instead of fuel used for its production. An
additional necessary reform measure is that the tax rate for industry
and greenhouse cultivators is now only 61% of the tax rate for other
users. Markku Nurmi, director general in the Finnish Ministry of
Environment and vice chairman of the European Environmental Agency is
not happy with the reforms. "Our old system had a very beautiful and
clear structure," he said. "There were no exemptions. It promoted
renewables and helped the replacement of coal by gas. The tax was very
easy to raise year after year, and you had a predictable perspective
for industry in the long run," he explained.
Speaking of modifications to the tax system he noted that, "The new
model is very complicated. It is difficult to predict future rates."
Regarding the ecological effectiveness of the taxes, Nurmi commented
that electricity prices are very low in Scandinavia despite the taxes.
"If you place a small tax on an already low energy price, it is hard to
see an effect," he explained.
This September the carbon tax on heat and traffic fuels was raised by
24% to FIM 102 ($19.2) per metric ton of CO2. The tax rate increase for
electricity will be of a similar size. "The revenues are not earmarked
to any specific purpose," explained Saarinen. However, the government
of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen stated in its April 1995 program that
the lower taxation of labor will be compensated to a considerable
extent by new environment taxes.
Swiss multistep tax reform
Switzerland is approaching the need for green tax reforms through a
series of steps. To enable reform, the Swiss Environmental Protection
Law was revised in 1995 and now contains the possibility to introduce
market-based instruments. Revenues from these kinds of levies are to be
returned to taxpayers. This year sees the first applications of the new
law: A special tax on light fuel oil with a sulfur content exceeding 0.1% has been in effect since July, and a tax on
nonmethane volatile
organic compounds will enter into force in the beginning of 2000.
A key element of Swiss climate change policy as it aims at the future
is the Law on the Reduction of CO2 Emissions, which was adopted by the
government in March 1997. Parliamentary debate about the law has been
ongoing since September 1997. Christian Albrecht, a member of the
economy section in the Swiss Federal Administration (Bundesverwaltung),
stated his belief that "After Kyoto the chances for implementation have
been increased markedly." The law includes a creative approach to
gently coerce energy consumers to minimize consumption. It sets a
specified objective for the reduction of CO2 emissions by 2010--a 10%
reduction compared with emissions in 1990. The reduction is to be
achieved through numerous measures, including a mileage-related tax on
heavy vehicles and a surcharge on motor fuel excise duty to finance new
construction for public transport. Most importantly, the law counts on
voluntary emission reductions by industry and public sectors to avoid
draconian CO2 taxes.
A tax will be introduced--at the earliest in 2004--only if other
measures prove inadequate to reach the CO2 reduction goal. The tax rate
will depend on the CO2 reduction that in 2004 still needs to be
achieved. Presently, the maximum level for motor fuels and combustibles
is very high: sfr 210 ($142.6) per metric ton of CO2. Industry, which
prior to the introduction of new taxes, engaged in voluntary
limitations of CO2 emissions, will be exempt from paying these taxes.
Prognos, a research institute located in Basel, predicts positive
effects on economic growth and employment as a result of the new Swiss
policy (3). The unemployment rate is currently about 5%. The Swiss
Association of Trade and Industry, Vorort, also supports the CO2 tax.
"We support the law because industry is given the opportunity to find
the most effective ways to reduce emissions," said Rene Buholzer, an
economist and member of the association board. "The threat of high
taxes is very important to create the necessary pressure for voluntary
agreements to be implemented," commented Albrecht. He noted that
effects of the announced law can already be seen: CO2 emissions in
Switzerland have been stable recently, partly due to the voluntary
reductions achieved by industry. A more important factor, however, is
the economic recession in Switzerland, which has been ongoing for seven
years. The CO2 tax does not cover electricity generation, which in
Switzerland is mainly produced by hydropower and nuclear power.
In August, however, a parliament commission suggested that the design
of the CO2 law should be changed. They do not want the CO2 tax to enter
into force automatically--if necessary--in 2004. They prefer instead at
that time to allow parliament to again decide about its introduction.
This would of course leave a loophole and diminish pressure on
consumers and industry to reduce emissions. The decision on the final
design of the CO2 law has not yet been made.
Market-based instruments in the United Kingdom
A government task force was appointed in the United Kingdom (U.K.) this
April to conduct research into whether market-based instruments are
advisable to lower industrial CO2 emissions. Two leading options are a
trading scheme and an industrial energy tax. The commission is headed
by Sir Colin Marshall, chairman of British Airways and president of the
Confederation of British Industry. Its report is due this November.
"Within industry and commerce, economic instruments potentially offer a
flexible, dynamic, and cost-effective way of improving energy
efficiency and delivering emissions reductions," said Marshall. "The
government believes, and I accept, that voluntary approaches alone are
unlikely to deliver results on the required scale." The task force
issued a consultation paper (4) and requested comments of interested
parties. Previously, the United Kingdom opposed common European energy
taxes, but the new Labor government has promised to reform the tax
system, and, over time, shift the burden of tax from labor to
environmental damage.
One direct measure of the government's intention to initiate green tax
reforms has been the raising of the yearly increase in fuel duties from
5% to 6%. In two years, this will cause the United Kingdom to have the
highest petrol prices in the world. The government considers this
measure a significant contribution toward meeting its target for a 20%
reduction in CO2 emissions by 2010. It is calculated that the tax
increase will produce additional savings of about 2.5 million metric
tons of carbon annually by 2010.
Market-based instruments are used not only to influence energy
consumption but also to influence other environmental behavior. The
October 1996 landfill tax-the nation's first tax with an explicit
environmental purpose--was revised in March 1997. As a result, the
standard tax rate will be increased from 7 pounds ($11.7) per metric
ton to 10 pounds ($16.7) per metric ton beginning in April 1999. Two
green tax initiatives are planned for inclusion in the next government
budget: a tax on landscape damage by quarrying of aggregates (stone,
sand, and gravel) and water pollution charges. Revenues are not
directly earmarked for any purpose.
Reforms, revisions, and studies
The European forerunners of green tax reform, Denmark, The Netherlands,
and Sweden, are continuing to revise and study their tax systems. Green
taxes account for about 14% of total national taxes (about 3.2% of
gross domestic product) in The Netherlands. A December 1997 white paper
was sent to parliament outlining options for a major tax reform,
including a further shift (about 0.6% of GDP) from the income tax to
environmental taxes.
Despite a history of experience with green taxes, effects are still
hard to measure. There are, however, some evaluations. At the request
of the Dutch Green Tax Commission, the Environmental Planning Agency
(Reijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheit en Milieu or RIVM) made model
calculations of the environmental effects of the general fuel tax. RIVM
estimated that CO2 emissions in The Netherlands would have been 1.7
million metric tons higher in 1994 without the fuel tax (5).
In Denmark there is now an ongoing evaluation of the ecological and
economical effects of the CO2 tax package on industry that was
introduced in 1996. "The problem with the evaluation is that we had
only two or three years of experience to base it on. That is a very
short time to see any effects," said Jens Madsen, head of the energy
savings and industry section in the Danish Ministry of Environment and
Energy. Nevertheless, the preliminary results of the present evaluation
already show some positive effects on CO2 emissions. However, energy
taxes on households have been applied for a period of years, and a
model analysis of their effects has been performed. It indicates a
reduction of residential net energy consumption of about 15% from 1966
to 1991 (6). Denmark's waste tax has also proved to be successful. It
reduced the amount of waste by 26% from 1987 to 1997, and recycling has
increased appreciably (7).
Sweden also draws positive conclusions from its experience with green
taxes. The Green Tax Commission, referring to data of the Swedish EPA,
concluded that 60% of the 8-million-metric-ton CO2 emissions reduction
that was achieved between 1987 and 1994 can be attributed to the
nation's CO2 tax. This amounts to 11% of total Swedish greenhouse gas
emissions (8). However, it found only a modest effect on petrol
consumption. On the basis of model calculations analyzing petrol
consumption and 1981-1994 fuel price data, the tax commission concluded
that a petrol price increase of 10% will decrease the demand for fuel
by only 1.2%-1.5%.
Kai Schlegelmilch, an economist at the Wuppertal Institut, a leading
research center on green tax reform in Wuppertal, Germany, explained
the difficulties in identifying the effects of energy or CO2 taxes:
"Not enough time has passed since the introduction of these taxes.
Carbon or energy taxes are not supposed to create a shock effect but
instead only slowly restructure the economy and fiscal system. They are
mainly effective in the long run. Moreover, the tax levels are still
too low to see a substantial effect."
Paralleling developments in individual countries, in March 1997 the
European Commission presented its third draft directive for common
European minimum energy taxes. It is currently before parliament for
comment and opinion. The directive has a threefold purpose: reducing
CO2 emissions to contribute to achieving the common Kyoto goal of 8%
below 1990 levels, improving the functioning of the internal market by
tax harmonization, and lowering labor costs to fight unemployment.
However, an environmental expert in the European Commission remarked
that the tax rates are not high enough to have a substantial
environmental impact. "But neither are they high enough to prompt
adverse economic consequences," he noted.
The Commission has calculated a slightly positive effect on GDP across
the European Union of up to 0.38%, as well as the creation of up to
717,000 additional jobs by 2005. CO2 reductions attributable to this
tax would then be about 1.6% per annum.
During the British presidency of the European Union, the directive was
not on the agenda. Subsequently, with the Austrian presidency,
negotiations for the directive were immediately revived. The European
Union Commissioner for indirect taxation, Mario Monti, met in July with
senior civil servants from member states to gain some kind of political
compromise on the tax proposal. However, negotiations proved to be
difficult because member states and especially poorer member states--
so-called cohesion states--are looking for special exemptions. What is
now being discussed is an exemption in the form of zero tax rates for
certain fuels, with preagreed increases later on.
This slow but steady progress in initiating reforms is mirrored in the
activity of some European nations. Green tax reform has begun or is in
the process of introduction in Belgium and Austria. In Germany,
although green tax reform has now been discussed for decades, observers
such as Schlegelmilch consider prospects for any implementation quite
low because of strong opposition by only a few energy-intensive German
industries. France is also known to oppose ecological taxes, but
recently this attitude has begun to change, and this year the French
Ministry of the Environment has issued a favorable report (9).
The German Wuppertal Institute, which organized an international
seminar on ecological tax reform in Slovenia in April 1997, observed
first steps toward green budget reforms in Central and Eastern European
countries, notably in Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia (10). "These
countries have two incentives for green taxes. First of all, they have
to increase their energy taxes if they want to become members of the
European Union. Secondly, they often have poorly structured fiscal
systems, so they look for new sources of revenue," said Schlegelmilch.
Slovenia, for example, introduced a CO2 tax in 1997 that increased
prices on fuels between 3-11%. In the beginning of this year the tax
rate was suddenly tripled, which led to widespread protests. The
revenue was mainly used to put ailing refineries back on a solid
footing.
Schlegelmilch also noted interest in ecological tax reform in China to
improve the catastrophic environmental situation in many parts of the
country. Korea has introduced two minor environmental taxes.
Schlegelmilch does not see any prospects for green tax reform in the
United States at the federal level of government, but notes that at the
state government level a variety of environmentally related levies
exist. In summary, he believes that the only viable way to institute
reforms in the United States is to cut environmentally destructive
subsidies.
References
(1) Fischedick, M.; Kristof, K.; Ramesohl, S.; Thomas, S.;
Schlegelmilch, K. Voluntary agreement of the German industry--Ideal
solution or cheat package?; Wuppertal Papers No 39, Wuppertal Institut:
Wuppertal, Germany, July 1995.
(2) Larsen, B. M.; Nesbakken, R. Norwegian Emissions of CO2 1987-
1994. A study of some effects of the CO2 tax. Environ. Resource Econ.
1997, 9(3), 275-290.
(3) Prognos. Wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen der Szenarien II a und lib;
Report number 561-4834; Prognos: Basel, Switzerland, August 1996.
(4) Government Task Force on the Industrial Use of Energy. Economic
Instruments and the Business Use of Energy; HM Treasury: London, U.K.,
1998.
(5) van Gerwen, O. J.; Honig, E.; van Wee, G.P. Greening the tax
system in The Netherlands: Indicative calculations of the environmental
effects of energy and fuel taxes (in Dutch); National Institute of
Public Health and the Environment (RIVM); Rep. 408130 001; RIVM:
Bilthoven, The Netherlands, February 1996.
(6) Boom, J.T. Danish Energy Policy 1966-1991: A Cointegration
Analysis of Some Policy Measures. In Experimenting with Freer Markets:
Lessons from the Last 20 Years and Prospects for the Future, Vol. I;
International Association for Energy Economics: Cleveland, OH, 1998.
(7) Andersen, M. S. Assessing the effectiveness of Denmark's waste
tax. Environment 1998, 40(4), 11-15 and 38-41.
(8) Jonsson, O.; Lofgren, K.; Nystrom, S.; Vilborg, I. Environmental
Taxes in Sweden; Report No. 4745; Swedish Environmental Protection
Agency: Stockholm, Sweden, March 1997.
(9) Bureau, D.; Hourcade, J-C. Le double dividende d'ecotaxes en
France; Rapport pour le Conseil d'Analyse Economique, Documentation
Francaise: Paris, France, 1998.
(10) Green Budget Reform. Countries at the Forefront; K.
Schlegelmilch, K., Ed.; Springer-Verlag: New York, October 1998.
Carola Hanisch is a freelance writer based in Freiburg, Germany.
37) RETHINKING ENVIRONMENTALISM
ENN
Thursday, December 3, 1998
Internet: http://www.enn.com/features/1998/12/120398/rethink.asp
By Dianne Dumanoski
"No ecosystem on Earth's surface is free of pervasive human influence,"
leading ecologists reported in the journal Science last year. These are
dark times on the environmental front. What were just bad dreams in the
summer of 1988 fill newspaper headlines in the summer of 1998. As
anticipated, the punch of global warming is hitting faster and harder
at high latitudes. Alaska is already melting. The average temperature
there has jumped five degrees Fahrenheit in the past 30 years. The New
York Times, which has been loath to alarm its readers about the global
warming over the past decade, reports soberly that Alaska's glaciers
are retreating rapidly, the permafrost is thawing, and the broad
stretches of white spruce forest are dead and dying. Between a third and a half of the white spruce have succumbed to
climate-related
damage.
Events are now unfolding pretty much as scientists predicted when
global warming first captured public attention 10 years ago. That
summer, while the Midwest baked in record drought and Yellowstone was
going up in flames, I covered one scientific meeting after another on
climate change, each more depressing than the preceding. So far, the
scientific forecasts I chronicled for The Boston Globe have been off in
only one respect. Timing. It is all happening faster than anyone
expected.
Such disturbing news should bring on a new bout of despair. But I find
myself feeling strangely expectant and even a bit hopeful. In my bones,
I'm convinced a profound transformation is already beginning -- a shift
comparable in scale to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, which
remade the mental and physical worlds and launched modern civilization.
Our current way of life emerged from a cultural earthquake that brought
down a world view and shattered the foundations of the existing order.
Now the plates are shifting again deep beneath the surface. This is a
hinge of history, a time that demands bold voices, vision, and
leadership to nudge the flow of change in promising directions.
Unfortunately, the American environmental community has yet to rise to
the challenge of this unique historical moment.
For more than a decade now, I've been struggling to get a fix on this
worsening environmental crisis -- an exploration that began in earnest
in the mid-1980s as I was covering the scientific effort to discover
the cause of the yawning hole in the Earth's ozone layer. When flights
into the vortex over the South Pole pinned the blame on manmade
chemicals called CFCs, the expedition report answered the scientific
question but confronted the world with much more profound and
disturbing ones. I stared into the ozone hole and listened to the
rumblings of climate change in the distance. This marked a watershed in
human history, I was sure. The weight of our civilization has become so
great, it now ranks as a global force and a significant wild card in
the human future along with the Ice Ages and other vicissitudes of a
volatile and changeable planetary system. Crossing this fateful great
divide, we now move into uncharted territory. A glimpse of this truth
threw everything suddenly into question.
How, I wondered, had we arrived at this juncture? What does it say
about us? Who are we anyway? Can we come to grips with our
fundamentally changed situation? How do we make the dangerous passage
that lies ahead?
After exploring these questions from many different angles, here's how
I see our situation. A fundamental shift of some kind is unavoidable
because the bedrock assumptions of our civilization are increasingly at
odds with the world we now inhabit. The Antarctic ozone hole, which was
discovered in 1985, marked the official arrival of this radically new
reality which has been emerging since World War II. Humans now dominate
the planet. As leading ecologists reported in the journal Science last
year, "no ecosystem on Earth's surface is free of pervasive human
influence." Over the past decade, world political leaders have mustered
some response to immediate threats like ozone depletion and global
warming. But at a deeper level, our now global human culture has only
just begun to fathom the implications of this unprecedented situation.
A planet spinning unsteadily under pervasive human influence presents a
new kind of environmental challenge -- one unlike any humans have
encountered. To make a future in this profoundly altered landscape, we
will almost certainly have to do more than negotiate global treaties to
remedy specific symptoms of planetary breakdown. In the longer term, it
seems to me, we will have to reinvent ourselves and our global
civilization in the light of our changed circumstance. Viewed from
across this great divide we have crossed almost unnoticed, the deepest
impulses and assumptions in the contemporary world seem not just
quaint, but dangerously obsolete.
Confusion, conflict, crisis
Despite growing recognition of this environmental crisis over the past
three decades, a profound confusion persists about the ultimate stakes.
It is true that industry has mounted disinformation campaigns to sow
confusion in the public debate. But environmental advocates and
activists have unwittingly added to the muddle. In truth, what we call
the environmental movement hasn't been a movement at all. It's been a
hodge podge of efforts on many fronts that has lacked direction and any
overall coherence. And for all its passion, valiant efforts, and not
inconsequential victories, environmental activism over the past 30
years in the U.S. has been losing ground in the battle to stem this
crisis.
Even worse, I fear that environmental campaigns that have captured
public imagination -- such as the worthy battles to save wilderness,
rainforests, and dolphins -- have helped foster the impression that
this crisis is primarily about distant places and creatures rather than
about the natural systems that support our communities and the larger
human civilization. This focus on a "nature" remote from our daily
lives has reinforced a dualism within our culture -- which imagines a
nature separate from the places where we live our lives and makes it
difficult to perceive our situation clearly. President Clinton's grand
symbolic gesture on the environment during his 1996 reelection campaign
-- his trip to Utah to announce a decision to protect the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument -- speaks volumes in this regard.
If this is what his political advisors think will play with voters and
the environmental community, it is a troubling sign indeed. The nature
that we need to save is not a place and the highest stakes, in my
opinion, are not endangered species or stunning pieces of red rock
desert, though these are precious indeed. This double vision supports
the comforting delusion that we can somehow save half the world while
the degradation accelerates elsewhere and it obscures the reality that
the human civilization we pass on to our children and grandchildren is
also in profound jeopardy.
In recent years, the concept "sustainable development" has provided a
new and valuable focus for environmental debate. One might take issue
with the term and its implicit bias toward economy rather than ecology,
but, for all its flaws, this vague goal does reflect a growing
recognition that the environmental crisis is first and foremost a
crisis for humans and our current civilization. I don't think this
smacks of "anthropocentrism," but rather a sober realism.
Let me return now to the question of environmental activism. Why have
environmental efforts over the past 35 years fallen short? How can this
concern and energy be mustered so that it does meet the challenge of
these times? What can this political, philosophical, and spiritual
tradition offer as we reinvent civilization?
As I see it, the new wave of American environmental activism born in
the late 1960s has been floundering about for the past three decades in
part because it is mired in an unresolved philosophical crisis and a
stalled transition. This crisis, which surfaced in the shadow of the
bomb and the chemical revolution after World War II, arose because it
became increasingly difficult to sustain the dualism -- which divides
the world into sacred nature and profane lands of human habitation --
that has long been a part of the Romantic tradition and environmental
thought. To understand this double vision, one needs to know a little
bit about its origins. Most contemporary environmental battles reflect
an ongoing feud within western civilization that has been raging for
more than three centuries over the uses of nature and the human place
in the larger scheme of things.
Between materialism and romanticism
The bedrock assumptions that dominate our present civilization come
from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightment, which replaced
older visions of nature with materialism -- a nature desanctified into
natural resources, dead stuff. The leading prophet for this camp in the
feud is the 17th-century philosopher Francis Bacon who was utterly
forthright about his imperial designs: "The world is made for man, not
man for the world," he declared.
The Romantic tradition which inspired artists and poets and later
gave rise to nature writing and the conservation movement -- arose as a
protest against the materialism and rationalism of the Scientific
Revolution and the Enlightenment. This minority tradition, which valued
nature for its spiritual meaning and redemptive power, functioned by
and large as a parallel or alternative vision to the dominant worldview
represented by Bacon. It turned its eyes to sacred nature and its back
to the Industrial Revolution that was transforming profane nature at a
breathtaking rate. This camp did not engage in political combat in a
bid to replace the Baconian assumptions that governed life in the
larger world.
Until Rachel Carson, the activism that flowed from this tradition aimed
to preserve sacred nature by saving pieces of the world. In the
political realm at least, early conservationists implicitly accepted
the schizophrenia that has plagued Western thought since the
Enlightenment -- a fractured vision that partitioned various
inseparable aspects of life and existence into discrete compartments.
Hence, a world bifurcated into mind and body, reason and feeling,
nature and not-nature, sacred and profane.
Carson, who had been a best-selling nature writer in the 1950s, moved
reluctantly into the new role of social critic in the wake of a
spiritual and philosophical crisis that confronted her with the
questions that continue to haunt environmentalism four decades later.
"I suppose my thinking began to be affected soon after atomic science
was firmly established," she wrote to her friend Dorothy Freeman in
1958. "Some of the thoughts that came were so unattractive to me that I
rejected them completely, for the old ideas die hard, especially when
they are emotionally as well as intellectually dear to one. It was
pleasant to believe, for example, that much of Nature was forever
beyond the tampering reach of man. It was comforting to suppose that
the stream of life would flow on through time in whatever course God
had appointed for it, without interference by one of the drops of the
stream - man."
Faced with the bomb and the postwar tidal wave of synthetic chemicals,
Carson couldn't sustain the nature writer's double vision. In both a
literal and philosophical sense, the Baconian project, with its
increasing power and now pervasive contamination, was bleeding over
into sacred nature. "I may not like what I see," she confided to
Dorothy, but it does no good to ignore it, and it's worse than
useless to go on repeating the old 'eternal verities' that are no more
eternal than the hills of the poets." The world around her had changed
irrevocably.
With the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, the cold war within the
Western mind erupted into open battle over the direction of this
civilization. Carson challenged not only the technology of modern life,
synthetic pesticides, she questioned some of its central assumptions --
such as "the control of Nature" and scathingly criticized some of
its priestly class, scientists. Carson's fighting posture and the
barely restrained anger that seethes beneath the prose in Silent Spring
signal her understanding that the stakes in this radically altered
postwar reality were now all or nothing.
Silent Spring helped spawn a new wave of environmentalism, but, I
believe, this effort has proceeded without truly grappling with the
deeply troubling questions that had attended its birth questions Carson
herself slid over or never fully answered before her untimely death.
Could there be nature on a human-dominated planet? Not the nature of
the Romantic tradition or of Carson's nature writing, it seems. If this
is the case, then the environmental tradition needs some major
philosophical reconstruction. It needs to put hard work into laying a
new foundation that will bear the weight of a changed world and carry
it confidently forward to meet this altered reality. Though there has
been much philosophical debate over such issues as "anthropocentrism"
versus "biocentrism," I don't think it has moved us in the right
direction, for the argument wallows in the dualism that has been
obsolete for half a century now.
No road goes back to the future
Mainstream environmentalism has also shown great ambivalence about
whether it is a radical critique engaged in challenging the assumptions
at the heart of the current order. Although Carson concluded that the
postwar world left no other choice, those who followed her have often
been less bold and less certain. Looking broadly at the political
battles over the past three decades, however, it appears that Carson
was right in her assessment. Despite an increasing level of
environmental activism in the U.S. and around the world, the
environmental crisis has escalated from the dirty air and dirty water
era in the 1960s to the global jeopardy of deteriorating planetary
systems in the 1990s. During that time, this many-faceted activism has
expended great passion and energy hurtling from one emergency after
another banning a pesticide here, fighting an incinerator there,
saving that ancient forest. Given the record, one has to question the
wisdom of this crisis-oriented activism. Is there any value in running
faster and faster to keep up with the accelerating treadmill of crisis?
Perhaps the time has come to forget the brush fires and take on the
pyromaniac.
I don't have a glib prescription to offer, but I am certain that those
who care about the environment and the future need to confront these
unresolved issues head on. Some of my own conclusions are already
evident. If this modern global civilization survives the next few
centuries, it will only do so through a profound transformation that
will alter all of its current operating assumptions. While some within
the environmental community have turned their attention to fundamental
flaws in the system and the need to alter assumptions, far too much
energy has gone into battling for mitigation of symptoms.
To meet the challenge of these times, the environmental community needs
to reinvent itself and reorient its efforts. It needs to get beyond the
double vision which is part of its philosophical tradition. It needs to
wean itself from a persisting propensity for nostaligia and
romanticism. It needs to turn its face resolutely toward the future and
its energies toward expediting the shift to a new human order.
I have old and dear friends, who have spent their lives trying to stop
the hemorrhaging of natural systems and the devastation of beautiful
places. They take serious issue with my conclusions, arguing the these
efforts have to continue. Otherwise, they contend, we will have nothing
left by the time the new order emerges. I respect these efforts deeply
but I question whether this strategy will save anything at all. To me,
it has become increasingly clear that the only long-term hope for the
places and things that have inspired the environmental imagination is a
speedy move toward the new order. Species are disappearing even in
protected areas like Yosemite National Park, where five of seven
species of frogs and toads have vanished in the past century without
explantion. These losses, which may be due to pesticide contamination
traveling into the Sierra from California agricultural areas, bear
witness to our failed experiment with double vision. In the face of
rising sea levels, one of my friends is trying to buy and preserve an
exquisite, low-lying coral atoll in the Pacific. I see this as an
environmental parable for our times.
So let's assume that the environmental community heeds this counsel.
What are the ingredients of an environmental effort equal to the times?
Boldness and vision stand at the top of the list. If those concerned
about the environment want to move global civilization in a new
direction, they first need to get to work on developing a broad,
compelling, and coherent vision that will provide a map for the human
future. To rank as a serious contender, such a vision must reach beyond
the traditional boundaries of environmental thought and describe how
leading institutions in our global civilization -- such as science,
technology, and the economy -- need to be redirected in light of our
changed situation. This vision needs to unmask the deepest assumptions
of the current order, many of them rather recent philosophical
inventions as it turns out. This means taking on the guiding myths of
modern life -- notions that are so much a part of the current worldview
that many people take them to be truths rather than assumptions. It
should be noted, however, that the environmental tradition springs from
the same 18th-century soil as the rest of modern culture and it shares
some of its problematic assumptions, including the fiction of
individualism that emerged in this period.
Any serious challenge to our current civilization also needs to address
the deepest philosophical questions. At this critical moment in the
human journey, we must grapple with the question of human purpose in
the light of our altered circumstance and of how we ought to live. We
need to consider how we bring liberty and limits into reasonable
balance. We need to confront the question that haunts modern life
andems to ring with increasing hollowness: freedom for what? Surely
these times demand a more imaginative answer than "the pursuit of
happiness."
My own list of obsolete and increasingly dangerous concepts in need of
revision includes: current notions of individualism, private property,
and unmanaged markets and global free trade. International efforts to
manage human impact on planetary systems are now on a collision course
with the deregulatory imperatives of the increasingly powerful World
Trade Organization and the supporting trade agreements. As currently
written, the rules now being set in place in the ongoing process of
globalization which assume free trade to be the highest human good and
a trump for other competing goods such as environmental protection or
cultural preservation -- pose a profound threat that will undo
environmental gains and delay the necessary transition. The most
dangerous aspect of the reigning economic assumptions is their
theological nature, notably the belief in what amounts to economic
Providence, which is implicit in the preposterous idea that the best
human order will emerge without conscious intention or planning from
this let-it-rip free for all. Those who embrace this idea must do so as
a matter of fundamental faith, for evidence to the contrary has been
mounting for half a century. This providentialism is probably as great
a danger to our future as the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the
earth's atmosphere. It is utter madness to believe that there is no
need to consciously plan and create the human future. In the changed
world we now inhabit, it is reckless to persist in treating trade as an
end in itself, rather than a tool to accomplish our chosen ends.
As we struggle to create a new human order, I don't think we can reach
backward for solutions. Environmental thought has suffered far too long
from a chronic affliction "back to the future." In fashioning a new
vision, we need to face the future squarely, imagine, and innovate in
the tradition of thinkers and doers like scientist John Todd of Ocean
Arks International (who proposes new technologies built on diverse
organisms put together in creative combinations), rather than yearn for
a simpler world of fewer people. Unprecedented challenges demand novel
solutions. A vision of a new human order needs to begin with realistic
premises such as the existence of an inescapably interconnected
global civilization and point toward some plausible steps to propel
us forward toward the kind of society and world we have decided we want
to create.
Former Boston Globe environmental reporter Dianne Dumanoski is the
coauthor of Our Stolen Future.
Reprinted with permission from Conservation Matters, a publication of
the Conservation Legal Foundation.
38) US SENATE SHOULD NIX KYOTO PACT
Journal of Commerce
4 December
BY ALEXANDER F. ANNETT
How does a $397 billion drop in the economy sound? How about paying an
additional 50 cents for a gallon of gasoline? Or how would you like to
see your electricity bill nearly double and, if you heat your house
with gas, your gas bill shoot up by 147%?
These are just some of the economic consequences Americans will face as
a result of the Kyoto Protocol, the global warming treaty the Clinton
administration just signed.
The source of these findings is the administration's own Department of
Energy, which recently analyzed the treaty's requirement that U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions be cut by approximately one-third over the
next decade (below the levels otherwise predicted for 2010).
Though the Senate hasn't ratified the treaty, the White House
apparently plans to comply anyway, as it made clear at the recently
concluded global warming summit in Buenos Aires. The White House has
been moving ahead with the treaty's implementation under the apparent
belief that cutting back on U.S. emissions won't affect the economy.
That's pure fantasy, since only two ways exist to curb emissions: 1)
curtail economic activity, or 2) spend untold billions on costly new
equipment and technologies.
Though the White House's Council of Economic Advisors has predicted
far-less serious economic consequences, the energy department's
estimates are even more dramatic than those of the respected WEFA Group
and Charles River Associates economic consulting firms.
What are the pocketbook implications? Even using the more conservative
WEFA estimates, the Kyoto treaty is a bitter economic pill, adding an
estimated 9% to your grocery bills, 11% to your medical bills, and 21%
to your housing costs. Tally all of the added costs between 2001 and
2020 and you get the equivalent of a 14.5% income tax hike on the
average family. Unfortunately, the administration is pushing ahead with
the Kyoto restrictions despite the lack of a clear scientific consensus
that Mother Earth is actually warming.
Some scientists cite an estimated 1.08-degree increase in the Earth's
surface temperature since 1850 as evidence of global warming. But since
the Ice Age ended almost 11,000 years ago, six other major warming and
cooling trends have occurred. Three produced temperatures warmer than
the current year-round global temperature of 59 degrees, and three
produced cooler temperatures.
There is also no scientific consensus that the 1.08-degree rise was the
result of factory and auto emissions. If so, the temperature increase
should have occurred after 1945, when the largest buildup of man-made
greenhouse gases occurred. But almost two-thirds of the increase over
the past century occurred before 1945. Thus the administration would be
foolish to push ahead with the Kyoto agreement. The only reason for
doing so would be to keep the peace with the environmental activists so
prominent in Vice President Al Gore's political base.
Even if the administration chooses to play politics, the Senate needs
to look at the big picture. Until it can be proven that the Earth is
warming and that human activity is the culprit, the Senate should
refuse to ratify the Kyoto treaty. To do otherwise would be
irresponsible.
Alexander F. Annett is a research assistant at The Heritage Foundation,
a Washington public policy research institute. This article was
distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
39) INVEST IN ALTERNATIVES TO OIL
International Herald Tribune
December 7, 1998
Internet: http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/MON/ED/edchrist.html
By Christopher Flavin and Seth Dunn
WASHINGTON - The planned $80 billion deal between the oil giants Exxon
and Mobil provides one more indication that the oil industry is
entering a geriatric phase in which slow growth and low prices are
forcing companies to cut costs ruthlessly to survive.
Oil companies must do more than merge if they want to keep up with the
changes in the international energy economy. World oil use is growing
at only 1.4 percent per year, oil prices are down and global warming is
tightening the squeeze on the industry. Partly as a result of more
countries diversifying their energy supplies because of environmental
concerns, oil prices have fallen to less than $12 per barrel - down 80
percent since the early 1980s.
Despite prodigious exploration efforts, known oil resources have
expanded only marginally in the last quarter-century. Eighty percent of
the oil produced today comes from fields discovered before 1973.
Remaining oil resources are so limited that world production will peak
in the next 10 to 20 years.
The energy industries with the highest growth rates are wind and solar
power. A new generation of advanced electronics and synthetic materials
could quickly usher in a decentralized solar-hydrogen energy system in
the early decades of the coming century. Since 1990, the global solar
energy industry has expanded by an average of 16 percent per year and
the wind power industry by 25 percent, rates that the oil industry has
not known for decades.
These newer energy sources fill relatively small niche markets today.
But that was the case for oil at the turn of the century, when it was
used primarily for lighting. Just as happened with oil, double-digit
growth rates will soon turn the new energy sources into major
investment opportunities. The wind power industry has created 20,000
new jobs in the past five years alone - a stark contrast to the 9,000
jobs that will be lost as a result of the Exxon-Mobil merger.
In the last year, a few leading automakers announced plans for a new
generation of fuel cell cars that could be run on ethanol, natural gas
or hydrogen, rather than oil. As such technologies begin to take hold a
decade or so from now, oil demand could shrink sharply.
The prospect of climate disruption forcing the world away from oil has
led some oil companies to diversify their energy portfolios. In a
landmark statement last year, John Browne, chairman of British
Petroleum, said that BP had accepted the scientific reality of climate
change and would add to its existing investment in solar energy.
Another Europe-based oil major, Royal Dutch/Shell, later announced
plans to invest $500 million in renewable energy.
Such moves have opened a trans-Atlantic environmental divide in the oil
industry, one that may be deepened by the Exxon-Mobil deal. Both
companies have actively questioned the science of climate change and
have lobbied the U.S. Senate not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that
seeks to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. This policy of denial may
blind the combined company to changes in the energy marketplace. Exxon
and Mobil both walked away from major solar investments in the 1980s,
in contrast to the recent moves of BP and Shell.
The risk facing Exxon-Mobil and some other petroleum titans is that
they will be so focused on cost-effectively exploiting remaining oil
reserves in remote corners of the world that they will miss the far
larger and more lucrative investment opportunities opening up the
alternative energy arena.
Mr. Flavin is senior vice president and Mr. Dunn is a research
associate at the Worldwatch Institute, a nongovernmental environment
monitoring group in Washington. They contributed this comment to the
International Herald Tribune.
40) WARMER AND WARMER
Washington Post
Tuesday, December 8, 1998; Page A21
Internet:
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/08/0101-120898-idx.html
By Geneva Overholser
Weather predicting is a great debate topic. Right now, in the mid-
Atlantic, meteorologists agree we'll have a milder than average winter.
Meanwhile, the more homespun prognosticators, relying on the likes of
woolly bear caterpillars' stripes, say we're in for a hard one. The
rest of us love speculating but have little confidence in any of them.
Maybe this is why people don't know what to make of global warming.
Climate is different from weather, of course. Climate is the result
over time of the complex system of heat and cold, sun and clouds, rain
and drought. Scientists now agree in overwhelming numbers that our
earth's climate is growing warmer -- not just naturally, but because of
pollution from human activities. The average temperature is a full
degree Fahrenheit higher than 100 years ago. Scientists believe the
warming will bring more frequent floods, droughts and heat waves, a
displacement of agriculture and a dramatic rise in ocean levels.
Global warming, it seems, is no longer a question to be debated. It's a
fact to be dealt with. It won't be easy. For one thing, this is the
first big issue we can deal with only if everyone on earth does so.
Also, despite wide agreement that the problem exists, huge questions
remain. How quickly is it developing? How serious will the effects be?
And -- especially -- how best can we deal with it?
Given all this, the response so far can be seen as inspiriting. A
treaty to bring about common action on harmful gas emissions was
negotiated in 1992 under the Bush administration and strengthened in
Kyoto, Japan, last year. Last month, negotiators from 180 countries
gathered in Buenos Aires to try to agree on how the cuts in emissions under the Kyoto Protocol are to be carried out.
However, human nature being what it is, opposition has developed apace
with the progress. What began with rare hopes of concerted action has
now bogged down in blame and self-justification. The advanced
industrial nations that emit most of the gases should do the most to
curb them, say the not-yet-developed nations. Ah, but the fast-
developing nations are quickly becoming the worst offenders: They must
sign on before we will act, say some advanced nations.
Since there is no recipe for solving the problem, there is plenty of
ground for argument. Some contend that industrial nations, employing
the right policies, could speed up use of promising new technologies to
conserve energy and produce more of it without fossil fuels, with
little impact on American lifestyles. Others say that helping the
developing nations switch to more efficient energy use -- in industrial
and auto emissions, for example - and to less reliance on carbons
would be much cheaper than squeezing a comparable amount of emissions
from developed countries.
Even as the debate grinds along, so does evidence of climate change.
This year has itself set all kinds of records. "For the first time, the
glaciers are moving literally faster than the negotiations," one
environmentalist told The Washington Post recently. Some say changes
may come ever more quickly now. "Global warming probably will not be a
gentle turning up of the thermostat, as climatologists used to think,
but rather a sudden switch to a new climate system," is how a British
science writer summed up some of the leading researchers' testimony in
Buenos Aires.
There are hopeful signs of movement. Argentina broke what had been a
united front of opposition among developing countries when it said last
month it would voluntarily adopt binding targets and timetables on
emission control. Similarly, the once adamantly opposed business
community is making some dramatic moves: Boeing, United Technologies
and British Petroleum are among those that have agreed to reduce
emissions without a treaty.
Meanwhile, in the United States, energy use has grown steadily despite
the 1992 agreement. With about 4 percent of the world's population, we
emit almost a quarter of the climate-changing gases. And we'll produce
30 percent more by 2008 unless we change our patterns of energy
consumption.
The Clinton administration has signed the international protocol but
says it won't submit it for ratification by the Senate - where
opposition runs very high -- until full discussion has taken place.
That discussion is overdue. As Carol Browner, administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, told a recent gathering in Washington:
"We know the train is coming, but for most Americans -- in their day-
to-day lives - they cannot hear the whistle." Between now and the year
2000, when the protocol is intended to take effect, we in the United
States should be talking as avidly about climate, and our effect on it,
as we do about weather.
Chad Carpenter
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
New York, NY
Tel: + 1 (212) 643-9599
Fax: +1 (212) 665-1788
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.iisd.ca/linkages
Linkages Journal: http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/journal/
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CREATOR: "U.S. Dept of State Listserver" <[email protected]> ("U.S. Dept of State Listserver"
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CREATION DATE/TIME: 6-JAN-1999 14:49:39.00
SUBJECT: Argentina, 01/99
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TEXT:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
BACKGROUND NOTES: ARGENTINA, JANUARY 1999
RELEASED BY THE BUREAU OF INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS
OFFICIAL NAME: The Argentine Republic
PROFILE
Geography
Area: 2.8 million sq. km (1.1 million sq. mi.); about the size of the U.S.
east
of the Mississippi River;
second-largest country in South America.
Cities: Capital--Buenos Aires (city: 3 million; metropolitan area: 12
million).
Other major cities--Cordoba (1.2 million); Rosario (950,000); Mar del Plata
(900,000); Mendoza
(400,000).
Terrain: Andes mountains and foothills in west. Aconcagua, (7,021 m;
23,034 ft)
is highest peak in the
Western Hemisphere; remainder of country is lowland; central region
characterized by vast grassy plains
(pampas).
Climate: Varied--predominantly temperate with extremes ranging from
subtropical
in the north to
arid/subantarctic in far south.
People
Nationality: Noun and adjective--Argentine(s).
Population (mid-1997): 35.8 million.
Annual population growth rate: 1.3%.
Ethnic groups: European 97%, mostly of Spanish and Italian descent.
Religions: Roman Catholic 92%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 2%, other 4%.
Language: Spanish.
Education: Years compulsory--9. Adult literacy--96.2%.
Health: Infant mortality rate--23.6/1000. Life expectancy--72.3 yrs.
Work force: Industry and commerce-36%. Agriculture--19%. Transport and
communications--6%.
Government
Type: Republic.
Independence: July 9, 1816.
Constitution: 1853, revised 1994.
Branches: Executive--president, vice president, cabinet.
Legislative--bicameral
congress (72-member
Senate, 257-member Chamber of Deputies). Judicial--Supreme Court, federal
and
provincial trial courts.
Administrative subdivisions: 23 provinces and one autonomous federal
capital
district.
Political Parties: Justicialist, Radical Civic Union, FREPASO, numerous
smaller
national and provincial
parties. In 1997, UCR and FREPASO formed a coalition called the Alliance
for
Work, Justice, and
Education.
Suffrage: Universal adult.
Economy (1997 figures)
GDP: $323 billion.
Annual real growth rate: 8.6%.
Per capital GDP: $9,100.
Natural resources: Fertile plains (pampas). Minerals: lead, zinc, tin,
copper,
iron, manganese, oil, uranium.
Agriculture (8.5% of GDP, about 60% of exports by value): Products--grains,
oilseeds and by-products,
livestock products.
Industry (30% of GDP): Types--food processing, oil refining, machinery and
equipment, textiles,
chemicals and petrochemicals.
Trade: Exports $26.2 billion--grains, meats, oilseeds, manufactured
products.
Major markets--Brazil 30%; EU 15.5%; U.S. 9%. Imports $30.4
billion--machinery,
vehicles and transport
products, chemicals. Major suppliers--EU 29%; Brazil 23%;
U.S. 21%.
U.S.-ARGENTINE RELATIONS
The United States and Argentina currently enjoy a close bilateral
relationship,
which was highlighted by
President Clinton's visit to Argentina in October 1997. The efforts of the
Menem
Administration to open
Argentina's economy and realign its foreign policy have contributed to the
improvement in these relations,
and the interests and policies of the two countries coincide on many
issues.
Argentina and the United States
often vote together in the United Nations and other multilateral fora.
Argentina has participated in many
multilateral forces deployments mandated by the United Nations Security
Council,
including recent
missions to Haiti and the former Yugoslavia. Reflecting the growing
partnership
that marks ties between
the two countries, on October 16, 1997, Secretary of State Albright and
Argentine Foreign Minister Di
Tella held the first meeting of the Special Consultative Process to
address
important issues in the bilateral
relationship.
U.S. Embassy Functions
The U.S. Mission in Buenos Aires carries out the traditional diplomatic
function
of representing the United
States Government and people in discussions with the Argentine Government,
and
more generally, in
relations with the people of Argentina. The excellent political
relationship
between the United States and
Argentina is increasingly reflected in the U.S. embassy's efforts to
facilitate
cooperation in nontraditional
areas such as counter-terrorism, anti-narcotics, and scientific
cooperation on
space, peaceful uses of nuclear
energy, and the environment.
The embassy also provides a wide range of services to U.S. citizens and
businesses in Argentina. Officers
from the U.S. Foreign Service, Foreign Commercial Service, and Foreign
Agricultural Service work
closely with the thousands of U.S. companies which maintain offices and/or
do
business in Argentina,
providing information on Argentine trade and industry regulations and
assisting
U.S. companies starting or
maintaining business ventures in Argentina. Attaches accredited to
Argentina
from the Department of
Justice (including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal
Bureau of
Investigation), U.S.
Customs, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other federal agencies
work
closely with Argentine
counterparts on issues related to international crime and other issues of
concern.
An active, sophisticated, and expanding media environment, together with
growing
positive interest in
American culture and society, make Argentina an uncommonly receptive
environment
for the information
and cultural-exchange work of the United States Information Service. The
number
of Argentines studying
in U.S. universities is rapidly growing, and the Fulbright fellowship
program
has more than tripled the
annual number of U.S. and Argentine academic grantees since 1994.
The embassy's consular section monitors the welfare and whereabouts of
more than
20,000 U.S. citizen
residents of Argentina and the over 300,000 U.S. tourists who visit
Argentina
each year. Consular
personnel also provide American citizens passport, voting, notarial, Social
Security and other vital services.
Although, since 1996, the U.S. has permitted Argentine tourists to visit
without visas, the consular section
does issue nonimmigrant visas to persons who travel for other purposes,
such as
students and those who
seek to work in the U.S, as well as immigrant visas to those who seek U.S.
permanent residence.
Principal U.S. Embassy Officers
Ambassador--Vacant
Charge d'Affaires, a.i.--Manuel Rocha
Deputy Chief of Mission--Thomas Martin (acting)
Political Counselor-Mark A. Sigler
Economic Counselor-John Creamer (acting)
Commercial Counselor--Michael Liikala
Consul General-Robert Raymer
Science Counselor--Philip Covington
Administrative Counselor--Benjamin Castro
Defense Attachi--Col. Jeffrey W. Whisenhunt, USAF
Commander, U.S. Military Group--Colonel Clark Lynn III, USA
Public Affairs Officer-Guy Burton
The U.S. Embassy and Consulate General in Argentina are located at 4300
Colombia
Avenue in Buenos
Aires' Palermo district. Mission offices can be reached at tel. (54)(1)777-
4533/34; fax (54)(1)777-0197.
Mailing addresses are: U.S. Embassy Buenos Aires, APO AA 34034; or 4300
Colombia, 1425 Buenos
Aires, Argentina. Embassy home page:
http://www.usia.gov/posts/baires_embassy.
ECONOMY
In 1989, after decades of economic decline and chronic bouts of inflation,
Argentina under President
Menem began an unprecedented, profound, and remarkably successful economic
restructuring based on
trade liberalization, privatization, public administrative reform, and
macroeconomics stabilization.
The 1991 Convertibility Law established a quasi-currency board which has
provided the pillar of price
stability but constrains monetary policy severely. The government
privatized
most state-controlled
companies, opened the economy to foreign trade and investment, improved tax
collection, and created
private pension and workers compensation systems.
As a result of these measures, Argentina has experienced a boom in economic
growth in the 1990s.
Following a year-and-a-half-long local recession, Argentina's real GDP
growth
reached 8.6% in 1997--
higher than the average of 6% for the 1991-1997 period. Industry,
agriculture,
construction, energy and
mining all expanded considerably during the year. Real GDP growth slowed to
approximately 5% in 1998,
primarily because of the impact of the world financial crisis. Private
sector
growth estimates for 1999
range from 1-3%.
The structural reforms undertaken this decade--coupled with monetary
stability--
fostered major new
investments in industrial sectors producing goods for exports. This was
most
notable in the food products,
oil and gas, automotive, and mining and metals sectors. As a result,
Argentina's
exports doubled in five
years--from about $12 billion in 1992 to over $26 billion in 1997.
Similarly,
imports also doubled during
the same period-rising from $15 billion to over $30 billion. Foreign
direct
investment flow--which
averaged $3.5 billion annually from 1990 to 1995-exceeded $6 billion in
1997,
according to reliable
estimates.
The May 1998 unemployment rate was 13.2%--down from 18.4% in mid-1995.
However,
larger and more
significant declines will come slowly over the longer term. This is likely
because the government intends to
implement several more privatization programs, labor productivity will
rise as
major private investments
are made, and future growth will be strongest in the capital intensive
sectors.
Argentina is vulnerable to abrupt changes in capital flows. However, strong
leadership and earlier
structural reforms helped the country weather the effect of the Mexican
peso
devaluation in 1994-95.
Argentine authorities, supported by the U.S., Japan, Europe, and
international
financial institutions, reacted
decisively to bolster the peso. The government has continued to demonstrate
credibility through further
economic adjustment and conclusion of a new Extended Fund Facility
arrangement
with the International
Monetary Fund at the end of 1997.
Argentina's principal economic policy challenges in 1999 are:
-- Managing the fallout from the world financial crisis.
-- Continuing the reform of provincial administration and banking; and
-- Simplifying tax collection and combating tax evasion.
Banking
Argentina's banking system began 1998 further consolidated and
strengthened by
recent large foreign
investments. Peso and dollar deposits in the banking system grew strongly
and
reached nearly $70 billion
at the end of 1997--close to twice the level in June 1995, when bank
deposits
hit a low of $37 billion.
Despite the turmoil in international capital markets following Russia's
devaluation of the ruble in August
1998, total deposits in Argentina's banking system-as well as the country's
international reserves-have
remained stable. Foreign-controlled banks now hold about 50% of total
Argentine
bank deposits.
In late 1997, shortly after the Asian financial crisis began, the
Government of
Argentina reassured
investors that the country's banking system and reserves were strong
enough to
withstand the storm. Bank
financing and lending costs are still high by industrialized country
standards.
Credit is very expensive for
certain sectors. Easier lending for small and medium sized firms and
improved
credit risk management is
essential to foster job creation.
In late 1997, the Menem Administration announced its intention to privatize
Banco de la Nacion,
Argentina's largest commercial bank. Strong political opposition, however,
makes
the timing of this
privatization uncertain. During 1998, the government initiated the
privatization
of the National Mortgage
Bank.
Foreign Trade
A key development in helping Argentina meet its external payments is the
dramatic growth in Argentina's
foreign trade since 1990. Foreign trade plays an increasingly important
role in
Argentina's economic
development. Exports currently represent less than 10% of Argentina's GDP.
This
percentage should rise as
Argentine export competitiveness improves--a result of increased
productivity
generated by new
investments, diversification of export products and markets, and very low
domestic inflation.
Grain output reached a record of over 60 million tons in 1998 as adoption
of new
technology and
management practices significantly increased productivity. Fresh
Argentine beef
was exported to the U.S.
market in August 1997 for the first time in over 50 years, and other export
prospects improved
tremendously.
However, export growth slowed sharply in 1998 due to lower world prices for
petroleum and agricultural
commodities. Slower growth in Brazil also adversely affected Argentine
exports,
especially in the
automotive sector. Meanwhile, lower GDP growth contributed to a reduction
in
the rate of import growth.
Capital goods continued to account for over 40% of total imports.
MERCOSUR, a regional customs union and emerging trade bloc (which includes
Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay, and Uruguay, and has associations with Chile and Bolivia), is
one of
the largest and most
dynamic integrated markets in the developing world. Close cooperation
between
Brazil and Argentina--
historic competitors--is key to MERCOSUR's impressive growth. Argentina's
trade
with the other members
of MERCOSUR has grown fivefold since 1991. (During that period, its total
foreign trade doubled). As a
result, Argentina will focus more attention on deepening MERCOSUR
relations.
MERCOSUR needs
closer coordination of macroeconomic policies and better dispute resolution
mechanisms.
Ties to MERCOSUR will take on added importance in coming years. Argentina's
trade and investment
have tremendous potential to grow along with hemispheric economic
integration.
The 1998 financial
turbulence triggered by the Russian devaluation underscored that
macroeconomic
conditions in Brazil--
Argentina's most important trading partner--are important variables for
Argentina's foreign trade in 1998
and beyond. On an upbeat note, Chile's association with MERCOSUR has
improved
access for Argentine
exports to East Asia via Chilean ports.
The U.S. registered trade surpluses with Argentina every year from 1993 to
1997
totaling nearly $13
billion. The annual surplus reached $3 billion in 1997--due in large part
to
Argentina's continued demand
for capital goods, as well as the recovery of the local economy. The U.S.
surplus with Argentina could
climb to a record $4 billion in 1998. This trend reflects the Argentine
Government's policy of encouraging
modernization and improved competitiveness for Argentine industry.
Argentina adheres to most treaties and international agreements on
intellectual
property. It is a member of
the World Intellectual Property Organization and signed the Uruguay Round
agreements in December
1993-including measures related to intellectual property. However,
extension of
adequate patent
protection to pharmaceuticals has been a highly contentious bilateral
issue. In
May 1997, the U.S.
suspended 50% of Argentina's GSP benefits because of its unsatisfactory
pharmaceutical patent law.
Investment
U.S. direct investment in Argentina, an estimated $12 billion in mid-1997,
is
concentrated intelecommunications, banking, electric energy generation, gas and petroleum
production, food processing,
and motor vehicle manufacturing. Additional direct U.S. investment of $2
billion
is expected in 1998.
The U.S. and Argentina have an Overseas Private Investment Corporation
(OPIC)
agreement and an active
U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIMBANK) program. Total EXIMBANK exposure in
Argentina
approaches
$2.5 billion, and the OPIC portfolio is approaching the country limit.
Under the 1994 U.S.-Argentine bilateral investment treaty, U.S. investors
enjoy
national treatment in all
sectors except shipbuilding, fishing, nuclear power generation, and uranium
production. The treaty allows
for international arbitration of investment disputes.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
After years of instability, Argentina is today a fully functioning
democracy.
During President Carlos
Menem's first term (1989-1995), he dramatically reordered Argentina's
foreign
and domestic policies. His
overwhelming reelection in May 1995-in the face of hardships caused by
economic
restructuring and
exacerbated by the Mexico peso crisis--provided a mandate for his free
market
economic strategy and pro-
U.S. foreign policy. Menem's second term ends in December 1999; the
constitution
does not provide for a
sitting president to succeed himself more than once.
The constitution of 1853, as revised in 1994, mandates a separation of
powers
into executive, legislative,
and judicial branches at the national and provincial level. Each province
also
has its own constitution
which roughly mirrors the structure of the national constitution.
The president and vice president were traditionally elected indirectly by
an
electoral college to a single six-
year term. They were not allowed immediately to seek reelection.
Constitutional
reforms adopted in
August 1994 reduced the presidential term to four years, abolished the
electoral
college in favor of direct
election, and limited the president and vice president to two consecutive
terms,
but allowed them to stand
for a third term or more after an interval of at least one term. Cabinet
ministers are appointed by the
president. The constitution grants the president considerable power,
including a
line-item veto.
Provinces traditionally sent two senators, elected by provincial
legislatures,
to the upper house of Congress.
Voters in the federal capital of Buenos Aires elected an electoral college
which
elected the city's senators.
The constitution now mandates a transition to direct election for all
senators,
and the addition of a third
senator from each province and the capital. The third senator will
represent the
electoral district's largest
minority party. The revised constitution reduces senatorial terms from
nine to
six years in office. One third
of the Senate will stand for reelection every two years.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies are directly elected to four-year terms.
Voters elect half the members
of the lower house every two years through a system of proportional
representation.
Other important changes to the constitutional system included the creation
of a
senior coordinating minister
to serve under the president and autonomy for the city of Buenos Aires,
which
now elects its own mayor.
The constitution establishes the judiciary as a separate and independent
entity
of government. The
president appoints members of the Supreme Court with the consent of the
Senate.
Other federal judges are
appointed by the president upon recommendation by the magistrates'
council. The
Supreme Court has the
power, first asserted in 1854, to declare legislative acts
unconstitutional.
Political Parties
The two largest political parties are the Partido Justicialista or Peronist
Party (PJ), which evolved out of
Juan Peron's efforts to expand the role of labor in the political process
in the
1940s, and the Union Civica
Radical, or Radical Civic Union (UCR), founded in 1890. Traditionally, the
UCR
has had more urban
middle-class support and the PJ has received more labor support. Support
for
both parties is broadly based.
A grouping of mostly left parties and former Peronists--the Front for a
Country
of Solidarity (FREPASO)--
has emerged in the 1990s as a serious political contender especially in the
Federal Capital. In August 1997,
the UCR and FREPASO formed a coalition called the Alliance for Work,
Justice,
and Education. Smaller
parties occupy various positions on the political spectrum and some are
active
only in certain provinces.
Historically, organized labor (largely tied to Menem's Peronist Party) and
the
armed forces have also
played significant roles in national life. Labor's political power has been
significantly weakened by
Menem's free market reforms. The armed forces are firmly under civilian
control.
Repudiated by the public
after a period of military rule (1976-83), marked by human rights
violations,
economic decline, and
military defeat in the 1982 Falkland/Malvinas Islands war, the Argentine
military is now a slimmed-down,
all volunteer force focused largely on international peacekeeping.
Government Policy
The Menem Administration has pursued wide-ranging economic reforms
designed to
open the Argentine
economy and enhance its international competitiveness. Privatization,
deregulation, fewer import barriers,
and a fixed exchange rate have been cornerstones of this effort. All these
changes have dramatically
reduced the role of the Argentine state in regulating the domestic market.
The
reform agenda, however,
remains incomplete, including improvements in the judicial system and
provincial
administration.
National Security
The president and a civilian minister of defense control the Argentine
armed
forces. The paramilitary
forces under the control of the Ministry of Interior are the Gendarmeria
(border
police) and the Prefectura
Naval (coast guard). The Argentine armed forces maintain close defense
cooperation and military supply
relationships with the United States. Other countries also have military
relationships with the Argentine
forces, principally Israel, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. The lack of
budgetary resources is the most
serious problem facing the Argentine military. Current economic conditions
and
the government's
commitment to reduce public sector spending have slowed modernization and
restructuring efforts. Under
President Menem, Argentina's traditionally difficult relations with its
neighbors have improved
dramatically and Argentine officials publicly deny seeing a potential
threat
from any neighboring country.
PEOPLE
Argentines are a fusion of diverse national and ethnic groups. Descendants
of
Italian and Spanish
immigrants predominate. Waves of immigrants from many European countries
arrived
in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Syrian, Lebanese, and other Middle Eastern immigrants
number about 500,000,
mainly in urban areas. Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin
America, about 250,000 strong.
In recent years, there has been a substantial influx of immigrants from
neighboring Latin American
countries. The indigenous population, now estimated at 700,000, is
concentrated
in the provinces of the
north, northwest, and south. The Argentine population has one of Latin
America's
lowest growth rates.
Eighty percent of the population resides in urban areas of more than 2,000
and
more than one-third of the
population lives in the greater Buenos Aires area. This sprawling
metropolis,
with about 12 million
inhabitants, serves as the focus for national life. Argentines enjoy
comparatively high standards of living;
half the population considers itself middle class.
HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS
Europeans arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.
Spanish navigator Juan Diaz
de Solias visited what is now Argentina in 1516. Spain established a
permanent
colony on the site of
Buenos Aires in 1580. They further integrated Argentina into their empire
following the establishment of
the Vice-Royalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776, and Buenos Aires became a
flourishing port.
Buenos Aires formally declared independence from Spain on July 9, 1816.
Argentines revere General Jose
de San Martin, who campaigned in Argentina, Chile, and Peru, as the hero of
their national independence.
Following the defeat of the Spanish, centralist and federalist groups
waged a
lengthy conflict between
themselves to determine the future of the nation. National unity was
established
and the constitution
promulgated in 1853.
Two forces combined to create the modern Argentine nation in the late 19th
century: the introduction of
modern agricultural techniques and the integration of Argentina into the
world
economy. Foreign
investment and immigration from Europe aided this economic revolution. The
investment, primarily
British, came in such fields as railroads and ports. The migrants who
worked to
develop Argentina's
resources came from throughout Europe, but mostly from Italy and Spain.
Conservative forces dominated Argentine politics until 1916, when their
traditional rivals, the Radicals,
won control of the government through a democratic election. The Radicals,
with
their emphasis on fair
elections and democratic institutions, opened their doors to Argentina's
expanding middle class as well as
to elites previously excluded from power for various reasons. The Argentine
military forced aged Radical
President Hipolito Yrigoyen from power in 1930 and ushered in another
decade of
Conservative rule.
Using fraud and force when necessary, the governments of the 1930s
attempted to
contain forces for
economic and political change that eventually helped produce the
governments of
Juan Domingo Peron (b.
1897). New social and political forces were seeking political power. These
included the modern military
and the labor movement that emerged from the growing urban working class.
The military ousted Argentina's constitutional government in 1943. Peron,
then
an army colonel, was one
of the coup's leaders, and he soon became the government's dominant figure
as
minister of labor. Elections
carried him to the presidency in 1946. He aggressively pursued policies
aimed at
giving an economic and
political voice to the working class and greatly expanded the number of
unionized workers. In 1947, Peron
announced the first five-year plan based on nationalization and
industrialization. He presented himself as a
friend of labor and assisted in establishing the powerful General
Confederation
of Labor (CGT). Peron's
dynamic wife, Eva Duarte de Peron, known as Evita (1919-1952), helped her
husband develop his appeals
to labor and women's groups. Women obtained the right to vote in 1947.
Peron won reelection in 1952, but the military deposed him in 1955. He
went into
exile, eventually settling
in Spain. In the 1950s and 1960s, military and civilian administrations
traded
power. They tried, with
limited success, to deal with diminished economic growth and continued
social
and labor demands. When
military governments failed to revive the economy and suppress escalating
terrorism in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, the way was open for Peron's return.
On March 11, 1973, Argentina held general elections for the first time in
10
years. Peron was prevented
from running, but voters elected his stand-in, Dr. Hector J. Campora, to
the
presidency. Peron's followers
also commanded strong majorities in both houses of the National Congress,
which
assumed office on May
25, 1973. Campora resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new elections.
Peron
won a decisive victory
and returned as President in October 1973 with his third wife, Maria Estela
Isabel Martinez de Peron, as
Vice President.
During this period, extremists on the left and right carried out terrorist
acts
with a frequency that threatened
public order. The government resorted to a number of emergency decrees,
including the implementation of
special executive authority to deal with violence. This allowed the
government
to imprison persons
indefinitely without charge.
Peron died on July 1, 1974. His wife succeeded him in office, but her
administration was undermined by
economic problems, Peronist intraparty struggles, and growing terrorism
from
both left and right. A
military coup removed her from office on March 24, 1976. Until December 10,
1983, the armed forces
formally exercised power through a junta composed of the three service
commanders.
The armed forces applied harsh measures against terrorists and their
sympathizers. They silenced armed
opposition and restored basic order. The costs of what became known as the
"Dirty War" were high in
terms of lives lost and basic human rights violated.
Serious economic problems, defeat by the U.K. in 1982 after an unsuccessful
Argentine attempt to forcibly
take control of the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, public revulsion in the
face of
severe human rights abuses,
and mounting charges of corruption combined to discredit and discourage the
military regime. This
prompted a period of gradual transition and led the country toward
democratic
rule. Acting under public
pressure, the junta lifted bans on political parties and restored other
basic
political liberties. Argentina
experienced a generally successful and peaceful return to democracy.
On October 30, 1983, Argentines went to the polls to choose a president,
vice
president, and national,
provincial, and local officials in elections international observers found
to be
fair, open, and honest. The
country returned to constitutional rule after Raul Alfonsin, candidate of
the
Radial Civic Union (UCR),
received 52% of the popular vote for president. He began a six-year term of
office on December 10, 1983.
In 1985 and 1987, large turnouts for mid-term elections demonstrated
continued
public support for a strong
and vigorous democratic system. The UCR-led government took steps to
resolve
some of the nation's most
pressing problems, including accounting for those who disappeared during
military rule, establishing
civilian control of the armed forces, and consolidating democratic
institutions.
However, constant friction
with the military, failure to resolve endemic economic problems, and an
inability to maintain public
confidence undermined the Alfonsin Government's effectiveness, which left
office
six months early after
Peronist candidate Carlos Saul Menem won the 1989 presidential elections.
As President, Menem launched a major overhaul of Argentine domestic policy.
Large-scale structural
reforms have dramatically reversed the role of the state in Argentine
economic
life. A decisive leader
pressing a controversial agenda, Menem has not been reluctant to use the
presidency's extensive powers to
issue decrees advancing modernization when the congress was unable to reach
consensus on his proposed
reforms. Those powers were curtailed somewhat when the constitution was
reformed
in 1994 as a result of
the so-called Olivos Pact with the opposition Radical Party. That
arrangement
opened the way for Menemto seek and win reelection with 50% of the vote in the three-way 1995
presidential race.
The 1995 election saw the emergence of the moderate left FREPASO political
alliance. This alternative to
the traditional two main political parties in Argentina is particularly
strong
in Buenos Aires, but as yet
lacks the national infrastructure of the Peronist and Radical parties. In
an
important development in
Argentina's political life, all three major parties in the 1999 race
espouse
free market economic policies.
Argentina held mid-term congressional elections in October 1997. The
opposition
UCR-FREPASO
alliance made major gains in the number of seats it held and deprived the
Peronists of an absolute majority.
The elections are widely seen as setting the stage for the 1999
presidential
race. The government's pro-
market policies remain unchallenged, but continued high unemployment and
growing
public concern over
corruption have hurt the government's standing in public opinion polls.
FOREIGN POLICY
In foreign policy, Menem has dramatically made partnership with the United
States the centerpiece of his
approach. Argentina was the only Latin American country to participate in
the
Gulf war and all phases of
the Haiti operation. It has contributed to UN peacekeeping operations
worldwide,
and has offered to send
peacekeepers to Eastern Slavonia and police to the international Police
Task
force in Bosnia. It offered to
send a military medical unit to the Gulf in support of the effort to secure
Iraqi compliance with United
Nations resolutions. In recognition of Argentina's contributions to
international security and peacekeeping,
the U.S. Government designated Argentina as a major non-NATO ally in
January
1998. Menem is an
enthusiastic supporter of the Summit of the Americas process, which
includes
Argentina's decision to host
the Second Specialized Inter-American Conference on Terrorism in November
1998,
as called for in the
Santiago Summit of the America Action Plan earlier that year. At the UN,
Argentina is one of the U.S.'s
closest collaborators. The Menem Administration supports the U.S. campaign
to
improve human rights in
Cuba and joins with the U.S. in international disarmament efforts, the
fight
against international terrorism
and narcotics trafficking, and efforts to control global warming. In
November
1998, Argentina also hosted
the United Nations conference on climate change.
Eager for closer ties to developed nations, Argentina has pursued
relationships
with the OECD and has left
the Non-Aligned Movement. It has become a leading advocate of
nonproliferation
efforts worldwide. A
strong proponent of enhanced regional stability in South America,
Argentina has
revitalized its relationship
with Brazil; settled lingering border disputes with Chile; served with the
U.S.,
Brazil, and Chile as one of
the four guarantors of the Ecurador-Peru peace process; and restored
diplomatic
relations with the United
Kingdom. In September 1995, Argentina and the UK signed an agreement to
promote
oil and gas
exploration in the Southwest Atlantic, defusing a potentially difficult
issue
and opening the way to further
cooperation between the two nations. In 1998, President Menem visited the
UK in
the first official visit by
an Argentine President since the 1960's.
Principal Government Officials
President--Carlos Saul Menem
Minister of Foreign Affairs--Guido Di Tella
Ambassador to the United States--Diego Guelar
Ambassador to the Organization of American States-Julio Caesar Araoz
Ambassador to the United Nations--Fernando Petrella
Argentina maintains an embassy in the United States at 1600 New Hampshire
Ave.
NW, Washington DC
20009 (tel. 202-939-6400; FAX 202-332-3171). It has consular offices in the
following locations:
Atlanta:
245 Peachtree Center Ave., Suite 2101
Atlanta, GA 30303
Tel: (404) 880-0805; Fax: (404) 880-0806
Chicago:
205 North Michigan Ave., Suite 4209
Chicago, IL 60601
Tel: (312) 819-2620; Fax (312) 819-2612
Houston:
1990 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 770
Houston, TX 77056
Tel: (713) 871-8935; Fax (713) 871-1639
Los Angeles:
5055 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 210
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Tel: (213) 954-9155 fax (713) 871-9076
Miami:
800 Brickell Ave. PH1
Miami, FL 33131
Tel: (305) 373-7794; Fax: (305) 371-7108
New York:
12 West 56th St.
New York, NY 10019
Tel: (212) 603-0400; Fax: (212) 541-7746
Washington, DC:
1718 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20009
Tel: (202) 797-8826
Office of the Economic and Trade Representative
1901 L St., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: (202) 56-4475
OTHER CONTACT INFORMATION:
American Chamber of Commerce in Argentina
Viamonte 1133, 8th floor
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tel: (54)(1) 371-4500; Fax: (54)(1) 371-8400
Home page: http://www.amchamarg.com
U.S. Department of Commerce
Office of Latin America and the Caribbean
International Trade Administration
14th and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20230
Tel: 202-482-2436; 1-800-USA-TRADE; Fax: 202-482-4726; Internet:
http://www.ita.doc.gov
Automated fax service for trade-related information: 202-482-4464.
TRAVEL AND BUSINESS INFORMATION
The U.S. Department of State's Consular Information Program provides Travel
Warnings and Consular
Information Sheets. Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department
recommends that Americans
avoid travel to a certain country. Consular Information Sheets exist for
all
countries and include
information on immigration practices, currency regulations, health
conditions,
areas of instability, crime
and security, political disturbances, and the addresses of the U.S. posts
in the
country.
Public Announcements are issued as a means to disseminate information
quickly
about terrorist threats and
other relatively short-term conditions overseas which pose significant
risks to
the security of American
travelers. Free copies of this information are available by calling the
Bureau
of Consular Affairs at 202-
647-5225 or via the fax-on-demand system: 202-647-3000. Travel Warnings and
Consular Information
Sheets also are available on the Consular Affairs Internet home page:
http://travel.state.gov and the
Consular Affairs Bulletin Board (CABB). To access CABB, dial the modem
number:
(301-946-4400 (it
will accommodate up to 33,600 bps), set terminal communications program to
N-8-1
(no parity, 8 bits, 1
stop bit); and terminal emulation to VT100. The login is travel and the
password
is info (Note: Lower case
is required). The CABB also carries international security information
from the
Overseas Security
Advisory Council and Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Consular
Affairs Trips for Travelers
publication series, which contain information on obtaining passports and
planning a safe trip abroad, can
be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office, P.O. Box 371954,
Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954; telephone: 202-512-1800; fax 202-512-2250.
Emergency information concerning Americans traveling abroad may be
obtained from
the Office of
Overseas Citizens Services at (202) 647-5225. For after-hours emergencies,
Sundays and holidays, call
202-647-4000.
Passport Services information can be obtained by calling the 24-hour,
7-day a
week automated system
($.35 per minute) or live operators 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (EST) Monday-Friday
($1.05
per minute). The number
is 1-900-225-5674 (TDD: 1-900-225-7778). Major credit card users (for a
flat
rate of $4.95) may call 1-
888-362-8668 (TDD: 1-888-498-3648).
Travelers can check the latest health information with the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta, Georgia. A hotline at (404) 332-4559 gives the most recent
health
advisories, immunization
recommendations or requirements, and advice on food and drinking water
safety
for regions and countries.
A booklet entitled Health Information for International Travel (HHS
publication
number CDC-95-8280) is
available from the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402,
tel.
(202) 512-1800.
Information on travel conditions, visa requirements, currency and customs
regulations, legal holidays, and
other items of interest to travelers also may be obtained before your
departure
from a country's embassy
and/or consulates in the U.S. (for this country, see "Principal Government
Officials" listing in this
publication).
U.S. citizens who are long-term visitors or traveling in dangerous areas
are
encouraged to register at the
U.S. embassy upon arrival in a country (see "Principal U.S. Embassy
Officials"
listing in this publication).
Registering with the embassy may help you to replace lost identity
documents or
help family members
contact you in case of an emergency.
Further Electronic Information:
Department of State Foreign Affairs Network. Available on the Internet,
DOSFAN
provides timely, global
access to official U.S. foreign policy information. Updated daily, DOSFAN
includes Background Notes;
Dispatch, the official magazine of U.S. foreign policy; daily press
briefings;
Country Commercial Guides;
directories of key officers of foreign service posts; etc. DOSFAN's World
Wide
Web site is at
http://www.state.gov.
U.S. Foreign Affairs on CD-ROM (USFAC). Published on an annual basis by
the U.S.
Department of
State, USFAC archives information on the Department of State Foreign
Affairs
Network, and includes an
array of official foreign policy information from 1990 to the present.
Contact
the Superintendent of
Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA
15250-7954. To order,
call (202) 512-1800 or fax (202) 512-2250.
National Trade Data Bank (NTDB). Operated by the U.S. Department of
Commerce,
the NTDB contains a
wealth of trade-related information, including Country Commercial Guides.
It is
available on the Internet
(www.stat-usa.gov) and on CD-ROM. Call the NTDB Help-Line at (202)
482-1986 for
more information.
(###)
ARMS Email SystemRECORD TYPE: FEDERAL (NOTES MAIL)
CREATOR: The White House <[email protected]> (The White House <Publications-
[email protected]> UNKNOWN])
CREATION DATE/TIME:11-JAN-1999 15:28:55.00
SUBJECT: 1999-01-11 Statement on State Visit of President Menem of Argentina
TO: Public-Distribution@[198.137.240.100] Public-Distribution@[198.137.240.100] [ UNKNOWN
READ:UNKNOWN
TEXT:
Note: Some recipients have been dropped due to syntax errors.Please refer to the "$AdditionalHeaders" item for the
complete headers.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 11, 1999
STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY
State Visit of President Menem of Argentina
President Clinton met today with President Carlos Menem of
Argentina. The President paid tribute to President Menem for his role
in consolidating democracy and open markets in Argentina, promoting
economic integration and cooperation in South America and leading the
way toward a new relationship between the United States and Latin
America. Argentina has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security
Council, will chair the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) process
for two years beginning November 1999 and has played a leadership role
in global climate change negotiations. In this context, the two
leaders had a fruitful exchange on a wide range of global and
international issues as well as a discussion of our bilateral
relations.
The meeting between the two Presidents was their fourth in the
last two years and highlighted the close and beneficial partnership
that has developed between the United States and Argentina. We have
cooperated to address key challenges in many areas including climate
change, resolving hemispheric conflicts such as the now settled border
dispute between Ecuador and Peru, combating terrorism, and containing
the effects of global financial turbulence. Discussion of these and
other issues will continue in the 2nd Special Consultative Process to
be hosted by Secretary Albright on January 12. The two Presidents
established this group in 1997.
The President praised Argentine participation in UN peacekeeping.
He noted that Argentina has taken the toughest assignments -- including
sending detachments to Haiti, Cyprus and the former-Yugoslavia -- and
contributes more personnel to UN peacekeeping than any other Western
Hemisphere nation. The President designated Argentina a Major Non-NATO
Ally in 1997 because of that country's peacekeeping involvement and we
have supported Argentina's peacekeeping capability through funding and
equipment assistance. The President was pleased that the United States
would provide a Coast Guard patrol boat, a Coast Guard buoy tender and
a TA-4J flight simulator. The Administration is also notifying
Congress of its intent to make available from excess U.S. military
stocks 900 Light Anti-Tank Weapons (LAWs) for force protection use by
Argentine peacekeepers.
Representatives of the two governments also will sign agreements
on military acquisition and servicing and information security. These
agreements will facilitate our support of future Argentine peacekeeping
deployments. This year the United States will again provide assistance
to Argentina's regional peacekeeping training center, which is a widely
recognized model for emulation elsewhere. The meeting also highlighted
Argentina's significant contributions to international civilian police
efforts, both in regional training and in contributions to UN civilian
police monitoring operations.
The two leaders discussed our joint efforts to address global
climate change by building upon the work of the recent Fourth
Conference of Parties to the Climate Change Convention held in Buenos
Aires last November. The President and the Vice President praised
Argentina's leadership in committing to take on a greenhouse gas
emissions target.
The Department of Education and its Argentine counterpart are
entering into a Declaration of Intent which will set up a framework for
cooperation in areas ranging from educational standards to teacher
training and human resource development.
The Presidents also reviewed the international economic picture.
The President praised Argentina's sound macro-economic management and
open markets as the foundation for its continued growth and ability to
maintain investor confidence during last year's market turbulence.
Both Presidents reaffirmed their commitment to work to realize the goal
of creating the FTAA.
The Presidents acknowledged the importance of air traffic to the
development of the trade and economic relationship between their
countries. In that spirit, they instructed that the U.S. and Argentine
negotiators should seek to conclude an Open-Skies air services agreement
when they meet in Buenos Aires in March 1999 that incorporates a
reasonable transition period and opportunities for marketing
arrangements (code-sharing) among airlines. They agreed that this
transition period to Open Skies, to begin in January 2000, must enhance
competition and, at each step, allow greater access to carriers of both
countries to the growing air traffic market. Foreign investment plays
an increasing role in the aviation industry. Both sides agreed that
the United States and Argentina should reach an understanding on
foreign investment in aviation that is compatible with the laws and
policies of both countries.
President Menem informed President Clinton on his recent trip to
Great Britain and the President noted with appreciation the steady
improvement in relations between Argentina and the United Kingdom.
The Presidents discussed the scourge of international terrorism,
which has inflicted tragic losses on both countries. The President
applauded Argentina's initiative at the Second Specialized Conference
on Terrorism, hosted by Argentina last November, on the creation of a
standing Inter-American Committee on Terrorism. The United States has
offered to host the first meeting of the Committee should the
Organization of American States authorize its creation.
###
ARMS Email SystemRECORD TYPE: FEDERAL (NOTES MAIL)
CREATOR: PlanetOut NewsPlanet <[email protected]> (PlanetOut NewsPlanet <[email protected]> [
UNKNOWN 1)
CREATION DATE/TIME:12-JAN-1999 23:31:21.00
SUBJECT: [GLBT-NEWS:PNO] Out With The In Crowd
TO: GLBT-NEWS List <[email protected]> (GLBT-NEWS List <[email protected]> UNKNOWN
1)
READ:UNKNOWN
TEXT:
NEWS SOURCE: PlanetOut NewsPlanet - http://www.planetout.com/
BACKGROUND OF NEWS SOURCE:
PlanetOut is a web site with oodles of news, information, and just plain
Web-fun for the gay community. Visit their site and support their news
staff that bring you these articles. This particular article may have
even more links--for the Web version of this article, go to:
http://www.planetout.com/newsplanet/article.html?1999/01/12/4
Out With The In Crowd
NewsPlanet Staff
Tuesday, January 12, 1999 / 08:06 PM
SUMMARY: A gay Latino activist attends a White House Argentine dinner,
but doesn't get to tango with Bill Versace's "widow" debuts his
own collection, with help from Elton and David
Latino Leader at State Dinner
As Argentina's outgoing President Carlos Menem made his final state
visit to the White House January 11, the 170 guests at the formal
dinner in his honor included Martin Ornelas-Quintero, executive
director of the National Latino/Latina Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Organization, accompanied by Adolfo Mata, director of
Migrant Health Services, Health Resources and Services Administration.
While it's far from the first time that an open gay has attended a
state dinner at the White House, it's still fairly unusual. The event
was dominated by the tango, as performed by film star and U.S. Tango
Academy chair Robert Duvall and (separately) U.S. President Bill
Clinton, among others. Although the evening was designed to celebrate
things Argentine, there was no answer on the menu for the timeless
question "where's the beef?"
d'Amico Shows, Sir Elton Glows
Gay fashion designer Antonio d'Amico had the enthusiastic support of
Sir Elton John and John's partner, David Furnish, at his first showing
since the death of his partner, murdered designer Gianni Versace.
While John declined to take all the credit for d'Amico's decision to
launch his own career, he was one of the friends who encouraged
d'Amico to start his own label when working for his deceased lover's
company became too depressing for him. "I'm just glad he's got through
Gianni's death now and has made a great start on his own," John said
after the Milan Men's Fashion Week show. Furnish was among the close
friends of d'Amico's who modeled the collection, which featured lots
of leather and glittery patterns.
That John made the debut at all is a tribute to his loyality to his
friend. He dashed off to Milan immediately after his appearance at the
People's Choice Awards in Pasadena, California, where, as the chosen
All-Time Favorite Musical Performer, he performed a duet with LeAnn
Rimes of "Written in the Stars" from the new Disney musical "Aida,"
penned by John and Tim Rice. After Milan, Sir Elton hurried to London
to finish the score for Albert Brooks' film "The Muse." He's also in
London to launch a lawsuit against the company of his long-time
manager, John Reid. John and Reid parted ways several months ago, and
John's new auditors now say they've been unable to account for
20-million pounds; the suit alleging breach of trust, breach of
contract and negligence names John Reid Enterprises' former managing
director Andrew Haydon and the accountancy firm Price Waterhouse
Coopers.
From the GLBT-NEWS mailing list
Moderators: [email protected]
Archive: http://www.duh.org/glbt-news/
(Also available on FidoNet in GAYNEWS and ICGAL)
ARMS Email SystemRECORD TYPE: FEDERAL (NOTES MAIL)
CREATOR: Slate Magazine <[email protected]> (Slate Magazine <[email protected]> [ UNKNOWN 1)
CREATION DATE/TIME:12-JAN-1999 06:59:56.00
SUBJECT: SLATE MORNING DELIVERY: Tue., Jan. 12, 1999
TO: [email protected] [email protected] [ UNKNOWN
READ:UNKNOWN
TEXT:
SLATE MORNING DELIVERY: Tues., Jan. 12, 1999
--today's papers: Barr Exam
--international papers: Panetta Blames Dick Morris
today's papers
Barr Exam
By Scott Shuger
The NYT, LAT and WP each lead with the initial brief filings in the
impeachment trial. The WSJ flags the story in its front page news
box. The headlines at the two Times and the Journal stress the
offering by President Clinton of his defense, while the Post big
type explains that the paperwork dumped on the Senate includes
arguments from both sides. USAT runs its Clinton defense story as
the off-lead and goes instead with Michael Jordan's imminent
retirement, a story that rates big front play at the NYT and a
reefer at the LAT. Another sports story dominates much of the rest
of the USAT front: the wildly accelerating prices sports franchises
are fetching. For the price--$800 million--that the Washington
Redskins brought over the weekend, you could, notes the paper, buy a
space shuttle flight, or Avis or Rolls-Royce.
The upshot of the White House filing is that the charges do not rise
to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," while the thrust of
the House managers' brief is that if President Clinton's
transgressions aren't impeachable, then no president not a convicted
felon or murderer need ever fear impeachment in the future. It's
noted all around that the White House has added a more aggressive
wrinkle to its posture: now claiming that it's a "myth" that Clinton
did not tell the grand jury the truth about his relationship with
Monica Lewinsky. Dissembling about that relationship was confined to
the Paula Jones trial deposition, which as it happens, is no longer
an issue because the article of impeachment concerning it was not
passed.
Everybody notes that with the impeachment trial set to start
Thursday, President Clinton eschewed the usual joint press
conference alongside visiting Argentine President Carlos Menem. And
both the NYT and WP note that the congressional wood shop has been
busy building new tables especially for the trial. The Post says its
latest poll indicates 85 percent of those surveyed said they had
definitely made up their minds about the case, which, the paper
says, is "good news for Clinton."
The coverage emphasizes that the White House chose at this time not
to file motions challenging the proceedings, motions that could have
added weeks to the whole process. But the papers also report that
the White House has indicated it will probably file such motions if
the Senate chooses to allow the calling of witnesses after the
initial presentations by the House managers and the White House
defense counsel. The Post notes that the White House has also
dropped for now plans for any constitutional challenges such as that
the articles of impeachment were passed by a lame-duck House. But,
the paper adds, Sen. Tom Harkin and Sen. Paul Wellstone have filed a
procedural motion that would open the Senate's closed door for
deliberations on trial motions or the final verdict.
The LAT reports that at a Monday night press conference, Larry Flynt
accused Rep. Bob Barr, one of the House impeachment managers, of
hypocrisy for refusing to answer questions put to him about a
relationship with a woman not then his wife (she is now) during
divorce proceedings.
Inside pieces at the WP and NYT report that Clinton national security
officials including Madeleine Albright and the director of the CIA
have recommended that Clinton deny clemency to convicted spy
Jonathan Pollard. The official word is that Clinton hasn't come to a
decision yet, though. The stories don't mention whether or not
Albright and company were influenced by or mentioned to the
president this week's New Yorker story by Seymour Hersh arguing that
Pollard's intelligence take made its way to the Soviet Union.
The WP's "The Reliable Source" reports that David Duke now has an
opponent in the race to fill Bob Livingston's soon-to-be-vacated
congressional seat: it's--and this is really her name--Monica
Monica.
The NYT op-ed page contains a rumination about the imminence of the
millenium by Alain de Botton that scans with the familiarity of an
old shoe. But wait a second, it is an old shoe! The piece is merely
a lift of two pages from de Botton's two-year-old book, How Proust
Can Change Your Life, with a 1999 tack-on. Talk about Remembrances
of Things Past! Shouldn't the stuff in the newspaper be new?
Also in today's Slate http://www.slate.com
Chatterbox: The Case Against TickTocks
http://www.slate.com/Code/chatterbox/chatterbox.asp
Movies: Reviews of A Thin Red Line and A Civil Action
http://www.slate.com/MovieReview/99-01-09/MovieReview.asp
Pundit Central: Linda and Co. on the Senate Floor?
http://www.slate.com/Code/PunditCentral/PunditCentral.asp
international papers
It's All Dick Morris' Fault
By Alexander Chancellor
In an interview Monday with the Corriere della Sera of Milan, Italy,
Leon Panetta, the former White House chief of staff, lashed out at
former Bill Clinton adviser Dick Morris and blamed him squarely for
Clinton's troubles. Asked if impeachment had been avoidable, Panetta
replied, "Of course. All Clinton needed to do was to tell the truth
at once, instead of listening to the advice of his double-crossing
ex-consultant Dick Morris. It was Morris, immediately after the
scandal exploded a year ago, who explained to Clinton that America
would never forgive him for his escapades with Monica. I had warned
Clinton from the beginning about the bad influence of that man, who
cares only about opinion polls, bends with the wind of the moment,
and doesn't give a damn about moral and political principles."
Panetta said Clinton is in a state of enormous anxiety because "he
knows he has damaged the historical inheritance, which he valued
more than anything else." His mental equilibrium is preserved by his
powers of work and concentration, and his ability "to separate
problems into categories, choosing which drawer to open at a time.
But grief and rage are eating his liver out," Panetta said. In
reply to a question about Hillary, he said that she is "such an
inexhaustible source of inner strength that it was unthinkable to
imagine that she could abandon him just at this most crucial
moment." He added, "Nobody knows how the crisis may have affected
their marriage: but those who know the first lady well know that she
is a woman of great strength, with very broad shoulders."
The same Tammy Wynette qualities cannot be credited to the ex-wife of
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who left her to marry his
diary secretary. In a new book serialized in the London Sunday
Times, Margaret Cook excoriates Cook as a serial adulterer, liar,
and drunk. Britain's best-selling tabloid, the Sun, made the most of
the scandal Monday with a front-page headline asking "Would YOU
sleep with this man?"--complete with phone numbers that allow
readers to offer a "Yes" or "No" response. "Robin Cook is, frankly,
no Brad Pitt," it said. "He has been likened in the past to a garden
gnome and even a prawn. And the Sun would dearly love to know
the secret of his pulling power." But in an editorial, the Sun said
he should not be fired because "he performed well over the bombing
of Iraq and has built up a solid relationship with his American
opposite number Madeleine Albright."
Both the Sun and the Sunday Times are owned by Rupert Murdoch, who
was condemned Monday in an editorial in the liberal Guardian of
London for "intrusion into the sad, sorry lives of others." It said,
"An uncomfortable pattern is beginning to emerge. In Britain,
Rupert Murdoch's News International puts politicians on alert,
whether by 'outing' [British Agriculture Secretary] Nick Brown in
the News of the World or dishing the dirt on Robin Cook in the
Sunday Times. In the US, the Murdoch-owned New York Post runs (later
disproved) hokum about a Bill Clinton love-child, as if doing its
bit to drive the president from office."
The Guardian concluded that "perhaps it's time Rupert Murdoch was
held to account--not for his private life, as he insists on doing
with politicians, but for the poisoning of public life across the
globe." In another Murdoch newspaper, the Times of London, columnist
William Rees-Mogg wrote an op-ed piece Monday comparing the cases of
Clinton and Cook. "Cast both stories as novels, and ask what is the
core of the plot," he wrote. "A mature woman is married to a man who
is a perpetual adolescent; he is clever and good with words, but
lacks a sense of self-worth, and relieves his depression with
recurrent affairs of varying importance."
Tony Blair, back from vacation to try to weld together his fractured
and scandal-riven government, was mocked in the Christmas issue of
the satirical magazine Private Eye for publishing so many articles
in newspapers. Under the spoof headline "Blair wins 'Journalist of
the Year' Award," it wrote that the prime minister had "presented
himself with the award for writing the greatest number of articles
in newspapers in the last year." The trend continued this week, not
only in Britain but also abroad. There was a piece in a recent Wall
Street Journal about the launch of the euro, and on Monday there
were three more --one leading the front page of the Irish News of
Belfast, one in Lib\e'ration of Paris, and one in La Stampa of Turin,
Italy (the last two defending Britain's participation with the
United States in military action against Iraq).
In a front-page La Stampa editorial Monday, a former Italian
ambassador to Washington, Boris Biancheri, took issue with Blair and
claimed that Britain's part in the Iraq bombing "had above all the
function of covering up what would have otherwise been an
excessively visible American isolation." He wrote, "To pretend that
this was done to strengthen American confidence in Europe and faith
in its credibility is frankly to expect too much of our credulity."
In France Sunday, Le Monde devoted a full page to the alleged role of
UNSCOM as "a toy of the American espionage services" in Iraq and
carried a report from Jerusalem about the "decisive" role of Israel
in eavesdropping on Baghdad. In Israel itself, the daily Ha'aretz
led Monday with a report that former Foreign Minister Moshe Arens,
who appointed Benjamin Netanyahu as his top aide at the Israeli
Embassy in Washington in 1982, has decided to stand against his
former prot\e'g\e' for the leadership of the Likud Party and as its
candidate for prime minister in the May elections. He made the
decision after commissioning his own opinion poll, which showed that
"Netanyahu has a credibility problem with nearly half of the Likud
Party's members who will vote in the primaries."
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ARMS Email SystemRECORD TYPE: FEDERAL (NOTES MAIL)
CREATOR: The Economist <[email protected]> (The Economist <[email protected]> [ UNKNOWN ])
CREATION DATE/TIME:14-JAN-1999 17:08:25.00
SUBJECT: Politics This Week January 9th - January 15th 1999
TO: [email protected] [email protected] [ UNKNOWN
READ:UNKNOWN
TEXT:
Welcome to Politics This Week
A summary of the world's main events from The Economist
Also available at http://www.economist.com
IN THE ECONOMIST THIS WEEK
The devaluation of Brazil's currency reflects domestic political battles,
but it also bodes ill for the country's western backers and for other
emerging
markets * Clinton on trial * The European Parliament flexes its muscles * A
global war on bribery * Why too much money is bad news for the insurance
industry * The failings of Alexander Lebed, contender for the Russian
presidency * The puzzle of extra-solar planets * The black sheep of British
nobility
You can read these articles, and many more, in the free area of The
Economist
Web Edition, at http://www.economist.com. Subscribers get 50 more new
articles
each week.
SANTER JOLTED
+ The European Parliament rattled the EUROPEAN COMMISSION with a series
of censure motions that -- but for a compromise -- might have led to
the sacking of the entire 20-strong body, which had promised to report
by March on allegations of fraud and mismanagement.
+ GERMANY's centre-left coalition released details of a bill to offer
dual citizenship to many of the country's 7m foreigners. Although the
bill is more restrictive than was first planned, the conservative
opposition said it would still oppose it.
+ A left-wing, secular-minded nationalist, Bulent Ecevit, became TURKEY's
prime minister. His caretaker government is expected to rule the
country until a general election, probably in April.
+ The KOSOVO LIBERATION ARMY freed eight Yugoslav soldiers after days of
international mediation, and demanded that nine of its own guerrillas
be freed.
+ A former economy minister of SLOVAKIA, Jan Ducky, was shot dead. Local
gangsters were suspected.
+ After nearly 13 years in office, the SWISS foreign and justice
ministers, Flavio Cotti and Arnold Koller, said they would step down.
+ Italy's prime minister, Massimo D'Alema, said that more police would be
sent to MILAN after an unprecedented string of violent robberies and
murders there.
+ The United States IMPOSED SANCTIONS against three Russian institutes
for allegedly exporting missile and nuclear technology to Iran.
IRAQ, CONT
+ Saddam Hussein increased his verbal attacks on other Arab governments
a sign of desperation, said America. He also spoke of the need for
"dialogue". France proposed a phased lifting of the OIL EMBARGO against
Iraq and a less intrusive arms-monitoring system. American planes
attacked missile sites in Iraq.
+ Three Islamic militants in YEMEN were charged with the murder of four
western tourists. The government continued to hold five Britons it
claimed
were terrorists. A British oil worker held by rebels was freed.
+ Soldiers loyal to the government regained most of the capital of SIERRA
LEONE, as rebels, who had invaded a week earlier, retreated to nearby
hills. People who had been trapped without food or water since the
start of fighting told of rebel atrocities. The rebel leader was flown
to Guinea for ceasefire talks.
+ Rebel-held Kisangani in CONGO was bombed by government aircraft,
killing about 40 people.
ENDLESS PROCESS
+ Preceded by an exchange of charges and rebuttals, THE TRIAL of
President Clinton at last opened formally in the Senate.
+ According to government data, spending on MEDICARE, the federal health-
insurance programme for the elderly, grew by only 1.5% in 1998, the
smallest increase since the programme began in 1965.
+ In COLOMBIA, nearly 150 civilians, including women and children, were
massacred by right-wing paramilitary squads. In the "demilitarised"
zone in the south, after the formal opening of peace talks with the
government there, left-wing FARC guerrillas put on a display of 1,000
armed men, and said they would fight on until 80% of what they want was
conceded.
+ VENEZUELA's president-elect, Hugo Chavez, picked the current finance
minister, Maritza Izaguirre, to retain that post. Visiting four
European countries, with Canada and Cuba to follow, his message was the
same: stability, and a promise to honour Venezuela's debt, while
seeking to restructure it.
+ Visiting Washington, ARGENTINA's President Carlos Menem signed a
defence-procurement agreement, tangoed with Hillary Clinton, and got an
assurance that the American president would talk to Britain's Tony
Blair about the disputed Falkland Islands. Britain's Prince Charles is
to visit Argentina in March.
+ The left-wing mayor of MEXICO CITY, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, won the
backing of most of his party's congressmen as their future presidential
candidate.
SUPPORT FOR TIMOR
+ The people of EAST TIMOR should eventually be allowed to vote on
independence, said the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer,
in a change of policy. Indonesia is considering a form of autonomy for
the former Portuguese colony it annexed more than 20 years ago.
+ As a final step towards forming a coalition government, Keizo Obuchi,
JAPAN's prime minister, reshuffled his cabinet to make room for Takeshi
Noda, number two in the opposition Liberal Party. The Liberals' 47
seats in the Diet boosts the ruling LDP's majority in the lower house,
but still leaves it embarrassingly short in the upper house.
+ Prosecutors altered their charges in the trial of ANWAR IBRAHIM,
Malaysia's former deputy prime minister. They will no longer have to
prove sexual allegations in order to convict Mr Anwar of abusing his
power. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the foreign minister, was appointed the
new deputy prime minister.
+ Three government ministers in THAILAND face a vote of no confidence.
The opposition has accused them of inefficiency in handling the
country's economic problems.
+ After a lull of four months, fighting resumed in AFGHANISTAN north of
the capital, Kabul, between the Taliban, who control most of the
country, and forces of the ousted government.
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