From: bjmccall@cco.caltech.edu (Benjamin John McCall)
Subject: Environmental News
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: world, local
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:41:46 GMT

From env-link+@andrew.cmu.edu Tue Apr  7 21:02:51 1992
From: Student Enviro-Link <env-link+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr0/env-link/e-link.dl@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: E-Link: EnviroNews


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To Attend or Not to Attend: Bush Must Face the Fact that the Earth
Summit Exists

  By Rose Gutfeld  

  WASHINGTON -- The June Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, officially called
the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, is designed
to be an ecological Bretton Woods, where world leaders shaped the post-World
War II international financial system at a 1944 conference in New Hampshire.
The heads of as many as 160 nations hope the Rio meeting will put the
world on a path of sustainable development, in other words, a path that
will allow for continued development without overexploitation of resources
and environmental degradation, The Wall Street Journal reported. Among
other goals, negotiators hope to produce binding treaties aimed at limiting
global warming and halting the loss of key species of plants and animals.
They also will seek agreements on forests, oceans and assistance for
developing countries.  

  To Patrick Buchanan and other conservative critics of President Bush,
the conference is the product of a dangerous mix of Third World bureaucrats
seeking to shame the developing nations into giving more foreign aid
and environmental extremists pushing hysterical notions of planetary
peril. In a letter to President Bush, Rep. Tom DeLay (R., Texas) said,
"The rush to impose global regulations will have a negative impact on
the world economy, jobs, standards of living and health, with the most
severe consequences falling on the developing nations and the poor."
 

  Environmental groups reject the notion that cleaning up the environment
will slow economic growth. They note, for example, that increasing energy
efficiency can lead both to cost savings and a reduction in emissions
of carbon dioxide, the prime suspect in the buildup of greenhouse gases
that many scientists contend may lead to a disastrous warming of the
Earth.  

  Despite a series of preparatory meetings over the past two years, significan-
t questions, which may well determine the success or failure of the summit,
remain unresolved. These include:  

  -- Will President Bush attend? Environmental Protection Agency chief
William Reilly and other advisers are urging Bush to go, and there have
been increasing indications lately that he will do so. Last week, for
example, there were several high-level White House meetings on the Rio
conference and on a possible climate-change treaty. But the president,
mindful of conservative opposition, isn't disclosing his plans.  

  -- Will the U.S. sign a treaty aimed at curbing global warming? The
next negotiating session comes at the end of this month in New York.
Administration officials are crafting language under which nations would
promise to try by 2000 to stabilize per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide
at 1990 levels, but wouldn't pledge to achieve that goal. U.S. officials
contend that such an accord, which would include procedures to assess
progress every few years, could be mild enough to be acceptable to business
groups but strong enough to satisfy European nations that have pushed
for a binding treaty.  

  -- How much money, if any, will the developed world provide to help
the Third World develop in an environmentally friendly way? Some organizers
of the summit have said that "sustainable development" eventually will
require $70 billion of new aid on top of the $50 billion currently provided
each year. More realistically, delegates have discussed a range of $3
billion to $6 billion, but even those amounts don't appear to be forthcoming.

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  GENEVA -AP- A United Nations-sponsored meeting aimed at speeding the
phaseout of chemicals that destroy the earth's protective ozone layer
opened amid criticism from environmentalists that still more must be
done.   
 
  The meeting follows frightening new evidence that the shield against
harmful rays from the sun is disappearing much faster than expected,
increasing the risk of skin cancer, blindness and harming the body's
resistance to disease.   
 
  Scientists last month warned of an alarming rate of ozone destruction
over densely populated areas of Europe and North America, in addition
to the growing hole above the Antarctic.   
 
  As a result, the gathering is expected to agree to proposals banning
the use of ozone-eating chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons by the
end of 1995, five years earlier than originally intended.   
 
  For the first time, the experts will also discuss controls on another
group of substances called hydro-chlorofluorocarbons.  These were introduced
as a less damaging alternative to CFCs, even though there is now evidence
that they also harm the ozone layer.   
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Student EnviroLink                                                         
<env-link@andrew.cmu.edu>             Keep the information flowin'      
                                                 
Josh Knauer, Administrator            and the trees will keep growin'!  
                                           
Telephone: (412) 268-4572                                               
        


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