wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 510

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (515
notes).

Note 515 by UMNS on Dec. 18, 1997 at 09:47 Eastern (1963 characters).

TITLE:	Church Exec Urges Kyoto Treaty Ratification

Contact:  Joretta Purdue  	703(10-71B){515}
		Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722       Dec. 17, 1997

Church executive calls for ratification
of Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gases

	WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- A United Methodist agency executive who attended the
world climate change meeting in Kyoto, Japan, called the agreement reached
there on Dec. 11 an important first step.
	"For the first time, the governments of the world are pledging to actually
reduce, however modestly, their pollution of the world's atmosphere with
climate-changing gases," said Jaydee R. Hanson, an assistant general secretary
of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society here.
	After the president signs the treaty developed in Kyoto, the next step is
Senate ratification, he said. However, key Republican and some Democratic
members of the U.S. Senate have expressed opposition until developing
countries are required to reduce their emissions.
	"This requirement is hypocritical," Hanson said, "since the United States
with only 5 percent of the world's population is responsible for nearly 25
percent of the pollution that causes global warming."
	He urged the United States to make its cars, homes and industry more energy
efficient before expecting developing countries to forgo providing basic
electrical and transportation services.
	The agreement calls for the United States to reduce its emissions 7 percent
from 1990 levels by the year 2010. The World Council of Churches, in its
studies of the problem, concluded that 20 percent reductions are necessary to
avert disastrous climate changes, Hanson noted.
	The denomination's Board of Church and Society is urging senators to protect
God's creation by ratifying this agreement, Hanson said. He noted that the
board supports other environmental treaties that have been "languishing in the
Senate," including the Biodiversity Treaty and the Law of the Sea Treaty.
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