Governments warm to greenhouse action; not all play Uncle Sam's climatic waiting game.

Governments Warm to Greenhouse Action

In the Dutch city of Noordwijk last month, representatives from 70 nations stood ready to adopt or reject the world's first major multilateral agreement setting specific deadlines for limiting carbon dioxide ([CO.sub.2]), a major player in global greenhouse warming. The initiative would have required industrial nations to freeze their [CO.sub.2] emissions at 1988 levels by the year 2005.

But when it came time to endorse the conference's final declaration on Nov. 7, the freeze provision was nowhere to be seen.

Although the vast majorityof the participating nations expressed support for the proposal during discussions on Nov. 6, four economic superpowers -- and major [CO.sub.2] emitters -- did not: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Japan. Since the conference sought a consensus statement, drafters struck the controversial freeze initiative from the concluding declaration.

But even without a Noordwijk freeze consensus, some foreign governments and U.S. states have recently committed themselves to ambitious policies aimed at limiting releases of greenhouse gases. A few have gone so far as to set deadlines for stabilizing [CO.sub.2] emissions.

The goal at Noordwijk's Ministerial Conference on Atmospheric Pollution and Climate Change -- and at roughly a dozen other climate-change conferences over the past two years -- was to identify what must be done to head off a forecasted global environmental catastrophe. The recent activist measures of a few foreign governments and U.S. states may only marginally slow the rate of global warming. However, if such policy decisions prove economically viable, they could ultimately send powerful shock waves throughout the world's capitals.

"These decisions by individual states and small countries highlight existing opportunities to achieve [CO.sub.2] reductions through actions that have little cost and multiple benefits. At the same time, they help to identify where long-term conflicts may exist between simplistic solutions and balanced economic development," says Irving M. Mintzer, who directs policy research at the Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Last year, for instance, Sweden's parliament enacted legislation to freeze the nation's [CO.sub.2] emissions at 1989 levels, becoming the first country to do so. Sweden also intends to phase out CFCs by 1994 -- six years earlier than supporters of the Montreal Protocol now advocate (SN: 6/10/89, p.367) -- and to eliminate other ozone-depleting greenhouse gases (such as the halons used in many fire extinguishers) by 2000 at the latest, according to Maria Garding, head of combustion-and heating-supply analysis at Sweden's Ministry of Environment and Energy in Stockholm.

But Sweden's most daring proposal to reduce [CO.sub.2] emissions is a tax of roughly 3.8 cents (U.S.) on each kilogram of gas emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for any purpose except electricity generation. If, as many observers expect, the parliament adopts the tax measure next spring, "Sweden will be the first country in the world to introduce a charge on [CO.sub.2] emissions," Garding says. And the tax is steep, adding about 30 or 40 cents (U.S.) to the cost of a gallon of gasoline, she notes.

In May, the Dutch government announced plans to freeze its own growing [CO.sub.2] emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. The Netherlands' new cabinet, seated just last month, has already set interim targets for moving toward the freeze, says Bert Metz, environment counselor at the Netherlands embassy in Washington, D.C. These include a phased-in reduction of the annual rate of [CO.sub.2]-emissions increase--from 3 or 4 percent a year to just 1 or 2 percent -- over the next four years, Metz says. He also reports plans for an annual [CO.sub.2] tax as well as incentives to spur greater use of mass transit and to shift from coal and oil to natural gas, which emits far less [CO.sub.2] per unit of energy released.

And in June, Norway's parliament approved a plan to stabilize both energy use and [CO.sub.2] emissions by the end of the century. According to a report from the Norwegian environment ministry, "The government is preparing pricing and taxation policies which ensure that environmental costs are reflected in energy prices. This applies particularly to the price of fossil fuels."

Norway's plan features several additional measures to limit greenhouse emissions. These include phasing out 90 percent of the nation's CFC releases by 1995, reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by 30 percent by 1998, increasing railway passenger commuting and freight hauling, and encouraging greater use of public transportation by raising rush-hour tolls for automobile commuters in major urban centers.

Several U.S. states have also taken active steps to curb their contributions to global warming. The governors of Vermont and New Jersey, for instance, signed executive orders in October to limit [CO.sub.2] releases. Vermont's order seeks to reduce per capita non-renewable-energy consumption in the state by 20 percent during the next decade. New Jersey's requires state agencies to use the most energy-efficient equipment when a device's lifetime energy savings will lower operating costs; to ensure that these agencies' energy and regulatory policies maximize tax and other incentives for using energy sources that reduce greenhouse-gas releases; to recycle CFCs or switch to alternative compounds where possible; and to replace all trees lost through state-funded activities such as construction. As trees grow, they absorb and store carbon, limiting [CO.sub.2] buildup in the atmosphere.

California and Oregon have completed studies of how greenhouse changes might affect their energy needs, natural resources (such as water availability), agriculture and coastal communities. Agencies in both states are now analyzing potential responses to the climate-change forecast--including mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions as well as adaptations in agricultural and resource policies such as water-use management. Missouri has established a new commission to conduct similar analyses for its governor and congressional delegation.

Oregon's legislature also passed two bills this year aimed at slowing greenhouse warming. Provisions in one not only ban CFCs and halons in some products but also require recycling of CFCs in car air conditioners. The second law directs Oregon's energy department to develop a detailed strategy over the next two years for reducing the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by the year 2005 to a level 20 percent below 1988 releases.

New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo, citing concerns over global warming as one motivator, signed an executive order last December to establish integrated energy planning in his state. The first such plan, issued in September, lists many recommendations to mitigate greenhouse warming. These include a 20 percent reduction in energy use for all state facilities by the end of the century, tougher energy-efficiency standards for appliances and building codes, substitution of natural gas for coal-fired electricity where possible, and accounting for "the environmental costs of air emissions" when utilities use least-cost analyses to choose among alternative sources of power (SN: 5/7/88, p.296).

Such activities hardly represent isolated pockets of environmental sensitivity, says Christopher Flavin, vice president of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C. He observes, for example, that 22 U.S. state legislatures this year introduced a total of at least 130 bills relating to global warming. Moreover, in an October 1989 Worldwatch report entitled "Slowing Global Warming," Flavin notes that West Germany is investigating a comprehensive plan to address climate warming and the United Kingdom is considering controls on its releases of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas.

A number of nongovernmental organizations in the United States are also conducting research and outreach programs to spur state and national responses to the threat of greenhouse warming. Among them is the nonprofit Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) in Washington, D.C. That group is now preparing a eeries of reports on policy options -- and their associated costs -- that individual states can adopt to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Last summer it initiated a dialogue between industrial representatives and officials from eight states on ways to reduce electric-utility [CO.sub.2] emissions by 20 percent. To help focus discussions, CCAP has also begun a year-long analysis investigating real-world costs, energy-savings potentials and fuel-switching capabilities at two of the nation's largest coal-fired utilities.

Though policy experimentation "is as important as consideration of technological alternatives," most discussions of greenhouse responses focus only on technological fixes, says Alan S. Miller, executive director of the Center for Global Change. His center, created last summer, ams to determine the societal costs and trade-offs associated with various greenhouse policy options such as [CO.sub.2] taxes and changes in building codes.

The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental and Energy Study Institute, an independent bipartisan group established in cooperation with environment leaders in the House and Senate, brings in experts to brief members of Congress and their staffs on a wide range of climate-change issues -- from corporate concerns to the latest scientific findings and environmental issues.

Though lacking the [CO.sub.2] freeze initiative, the Noordwijk consensus demonstrated that world leaders -- including the United States -- already support the idea of stabilizing and eventually reducing greenhouse-gas releases. But most participating nations also believe it will take an international accord -- comparable to the CFC-curbing Montreal Protocol but covering a broader range of greenhouse gases -- to put the brakes on global warming in time to head off irreversible ecological damage. And that's why many heads of state, liek British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her Nov. 10 speech before the United Nations General Assembly, advocate completing a framework for international controls on greenhouse gases in time for adoption at the 1992 World Conference on Environment and Development. International scientific and policy groups are working to draft such a framework now.