wfn.org | Ecumenical Group Hopes to Convince U.S. Senate

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

21-January-1998 
98022 
 
    Ecumenical Group Hopes to Convince U.S. Senate 
    to Back Kyoto Protocol 
 
    by Tracy Early 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK--The eco-justice working group of the National Council of Churches 
(NCC) is planning a public education campaign to win U.S. Senate 
ratification for an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas 
emissions. 
 
    The Kyoto protocol, which was agreed in December at a United Nations 
conference in Kyoto, Japan, commits 38 industrialized countries - including 
the U.S. - to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. 
 
    But the Kyoto agreement has drawn opposition from some members of the 
U.S. Senate, where approval is required for ratification. Critics of the 
treaty have argued that the U.S. should not accept requirements to cut back 
its use of coal and oil if some Third World countries, such as China, 
refuse to approve the same limits for themselves. 
 
    Jaydee R. Hanson, a church expert on global warming, told ENI this week 
that senators arguing that way were "hypocritical" because the U.S., with 
only 5 percent of the world's population, was responsible for nearly a 
quarter of the pollution that caused global warming. 
 
    Since 1992, when the United Nations Earth Summit was held in Rio de 
Janeiro, the United States had in fact increased its pollution by 13 
percent, he said.  "When the developed countries demonstrate that they are 
serious about dealing with this issue, then they will be justified in 
asking the developing countries to do more," he said. 
 
    "China is not the problem.  The developed countries have caused the 
problem, and they are the ones most able to do something about it." 
 
    Hanson is an executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and 
Society, an agency holding consultative status with the United Nations 
(ECOSOC and Department of Public Information). He represented the board at 
the Kyoto meeting. 
 
    Hanson, a member of the NCC's eco-justice working group, said that 
members of the group had drawn up plans for a public education campaign in 
support of the Kyoto agreement. 
 
    The initial goal will be to get the Clinton administration to sign the 
agreement as soon as it becomes available for government signatures in 
March, and then to win Senate ratification, he said.  He added that 
President Clinton would probably not submit it to the Senate until after a 
follow-up meeting in Argentina in November.  But the NCC group was already 
planning to send the senators a letter showing the breadth of support in 
the religious community. 
 
    Hanson expressed confidence that the administration would sign the 
agreement and that the Senate would ultimately approve it, despite the 
declared opposition of some senators. At the Kyoto conference, Hanson 
presented Vice President Al Gore with several thousand postcards from 
members of 26 denominations calling for action on the issue of global 
warming. Hanson said Gore told him that "had the churches not been as 
active on this issue, the administration would not have been able to move 
as far as it has." 
 
    Hanson said he did not believe many industries would move their 
operations out of the country if the U.S. adopted stricter controls than 
developing countries, as some industrialists had threatened.  Some industry 
representatives had admitted to him privately that they were following a 
cynical strategy of threatening such shifts to defeat the agreement and 
save the costs of complying, but would not actually carry out the threats, 
he said. 
 
    Measures to reduce pollution would create some new jobs as well as 
eliminate some old ones, Hanson said.  But he said the churches should take 
action in the transition period to help those people who would lose their 
jobs. 

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 
  mailed from World Faith News <wfn-news@wfn.org>  

--