Statements this week by senior US administration environmental staff, including Tim Wirth, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, indicate the White House may have succumbed to fossil fuel industry lobbying groups that are trying to stall government action to combat climate change. The US has already announced it will not meet its 1992 Rio Earth Summit commitment to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Early action is vital to prevent further dangerous impacts on the environment from climate change.
A current multi-million dollar misinformation media campaign by fossil fuel interests claims that an international climate treaty would result in serious harm to the US economy. Such claims ignore recent findings to the contrary by some 2,500 economists, including several US Nobel laureates, published by Redefining Progress in San Francisco. WWF believes that although climate change is a long-term problem, early action to significantly address its causes makes good economic sense. Waiting decades before acting will result in greater damage to the environment from global warming. Raise the cost of remedial action by slowing the development of innovative and clean technologies.