Environmentalists Criticize Clinton On Global Warming

Environmental groups accused the administration Friday of backpedaling on President Clinton’s recent call for nations to work out a binding agreement to curb greenhouse pollutants to reduce the threat of global warming.

The target of the criticism was a State Department position paper negotiators will take to a conference in Geneva next week that will be used over the next year as part of efforts to flesh out a general framework for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas.

Last summer, the administration said it was committed to binding pollution reduction targets among industrial nations, but did not commit to specific levels or a timetable. Clinton reiterated that position during his recent visit to Australia.

The latest position paper, made public Friday, still contains no specific reduction targets or timetable, but calls for nations to commit to specific reductions sometime after 2010. It also would allow provisions that could postpone pollution reductions considerably longer.

“We’re disappointed in the lack of urgency,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate expert at the Environmental Defense Fund. He said the later countries begin carbon dioxide reductions “the costlier reductions will be to avoid serious harm.”

Dan Lashoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council, another environmental organization closely following the global warming debate, said the administration is “moving in the wrong direction” because binding commitments for pollution cuts should be required sooner than 2010.

Eileen Claussen, the State Department official in charge of putting together the latest position paper, rejected the criticism. “Nobody thinks there’s any backsliding,” she said in an interview.

She said that considering the complicated upcoming negotiations, it would be unrealistic to seek binding reduction targets by 2005, especially at a time when most nations, including the United States, will be unable to meet a commitment made four years ago to stabilize emissions at 1990 levels by 2000.