Argentina Joins U.S. In Global Warming Fight Clinton Wins Breakthrough In Push To Include Developing Nations

Framed by a shimmering lake and the snow-capped Andes Mountains, President Clinton and Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem agreed Saturday that developing nations must participate in a worldwide effort to reduce the dangerous emissions that threaten the earth’s climate.

The announcement makes Argentina the first developing country to sign on to the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a move U.S. officials hope will prompt others to follow suit.

“One of our severest challenges clearly is climate change,” Clinton said on the final day of his weeklong South American tour. “The evidence is compelling that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases are leading to the warming of our planets and global warming could lead to profound and destructive changes in the way we lead our lives.”

The consequences, he said, are that diseases will spread more rapidly, oceans will rise, lowlands and islands will flood and severe weather, including droughts and floods, will escalate.

The “Presidential Declaration of Bariloche” comes just days before Clinton is expected to unveil his long-awaited proposal for the reduction of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. The U.S. position - which is unlikely to be as ambitious as environmentalists would like - is expected to carry significant weight at a United Nations-sponsored conference on climate change in Kyoto, Japan, in December.

While other industrialized countries, including those in Europe, agree they will have to reduce emissions, they have not supported the Clinton administration’s position that developing countries must work for the same goal.

By siding with the United States, administration officials said, the large and relatively advanced Argentina could help sway Europe and Japan to include the developing world in any plan to cut emissions.

The United States, the world’s greatest source of pollution, and other industrialized nations must spearhead the effort to stem global warming, Clinton said.

But developing nations, whose emissions are expected to exceed those of developed nations in 40 years, must play a role as well, he said. “Since the issue is how to stabilize and reduce greenhouse gases in the entire atmosphere, this is clearly a global problem in which we must all do our share,” Clinton said.

The president added he does not expect developing nations to “sacrifice the legitimate aspirations of their people for economic growth.” But he wants to ensure that “today’s progress does not come at tomorrow’s expense.”

Clinton and Menem support a plan intended to reduce emissions without forcing polluters to take on prohibitive costs that would boost prices. Under the “credit” plan, a company from one country could offset its own levels of pollution by helping a company in another country reduce its emissions through better technology.

Major U.S. corporations have launched a glitzy advertising campaign, contending that plans to stem global warming would drive up the price of gas and send jobs to developing countries with less stringent pollution standards. Some economists say emissions quotas would cost each American household thousands of dollars a year.

In his upcoming proposal, Clinton is expected to try to strike a middle ground between business interests and environmentalists who say the long-term problems brought about by rising temperatures far outweigh the out-of-pocket cost of reducing pollution.

Using a baseline level of emissions dating back to 1990, European countries have called for a 15 percent reduction of greenhouse gasses by 2010, and Japan has called for a 5 percent drop by 2012.