Clinton To Take Long-Range Look At Global Warming

President Bill Clinton will lay out ideas to reduce global warming over the next 50 years when he addresses the U.N. Earth Summit today, Under Secretary of State Tim Wirth said on Tuesday.

With the United States under pressure, especially from Europe, to set clear short-term targets for cutting pollution from fossil fuels, Wirth sought to shift the focus to the longer term.

Hes going to say what he thinks the long-term goal should be, Wirth told a briefing, adding he meant stabilising levels of greenhouse gases over the next 30 to 50 years.

If people dont understand the issue of long-term concentrations, and then arent willing to make a commitment to long term concentrations, were not going to make any progress whatsoever, Wirth said.

Clinton will discuss enormously challenging long-term solutions involving a whole new approach to how the world fuels its economy, when he addresses the summit, Wirth said.

European countries have rapped the United States for rejecting their pressure to set clear short-term targets for cutting greenhouse gases as part of climate change negotiations that will end in Kyoto, Japan, in December. But Wirth said the United States will not announce its targets and timetables for emissions reductions until late summer or early fall.

Whatever we do in Kyoto doesnt solve the problem. It is a step toward the...very sharp reductions that are going to be necessary if we are going to stabilise the concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, he said.

To stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at twice their pre-industrial levels by 2050 would require a 70 percent reduction in emissions by all carbon producing countries, us in particular, Wirth said.

The United States is the largest single source of carbon dioxide pollution.

He said ways to reduce pollution without hurting the economy could involve complex tradeoffs of fuel taxes offset by reductions in other taxes.

Wirth also said he applauded the comments of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who, without citing the United States specificially, criticised countries that did not meet non-binding targets to reduce carbon emissions set in the 1992 Earth Summit.

We applaud Tony Blair and what he said yesterday. That was absolutely terrific, Wirth said.

But he said the United States has had different economic conditions from Britain and Germany, which have met their targets.

Since 1992, Wirth said, the United States has had an unexpectedly strong economy and oil prices have been low. Also it had not had a silver bullet, unlike Germany which met targets largely by closing East Germanys inefficient utilities.