Volume 2, issue #16 - 05-06-1997

May 20, 1997 The United States predicts its emission of global-warming gasses will increase some 20 % in 2010 from the 1990 level even if it makes various efforts to cut emissions, according to a report of the State Department.
The State Department will submit the prediction to the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, department sources said. In 1992, the United Nations held the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in which signatory nations to the climate change convention agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. The convention aims to counteract the global warming phenomenon, by which the planet's average temperature is expected to rise due to the accumulation of gases such as carbon dioxide that trap heat from the sun's rays within the planet's atmosphere.
Signatory states are obliged to submit reports to enable the secretariat to assess the 2000, 2010 and even 2020 emission level projections of each signatory state.
The third Conference of Participants of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held in Kyoto in December to adopt a protocol imposing legally binding numerical targets on industrialised countries for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in 2000 and after. However the US, which is the top emitter of global-warming CO2, plans to insist that it will be difficult for the US to reduce emissions and that the protocol should include such issues as emission cutting efforts by the developing countries and the proposed trading in emission quotas, according to the sources.
The European Union (EU) argues that global 2010 emission targets should be made 15 % lower than actual 1990 emissions.
Whether developing nations will be obliged to reduce emissions is expected to be one of the issues at the Kyoto session, as some developing countries maintain that industrialised countries should cut the gasses first. According to the report, the US plans 40 measures to cut emissions, including the application of new energy-saving technologies in air conditioners and other home electrical appliances, a massive reduction of CO2 emission in the electric power sector and increased afforestation.
As a result of the drive, projected greenhouse gas emissions would be 1.8 billion tons in 2010 and 2 billion tons in 2020, smaller by 170 million tons and 230 million tons, respectively, than the levels that would have been marked without the emission-cutting measures, the report says. But the predicted levels would still be 20% greater in 2010, and 33% in 2020, than the actual 1.5 billion ton emissions of 1990.
The convention target of holding global warming gas emission levels to the 1990 level through 2000 will also be difficult for the US to achieve, with the report foreseeing the emission level in 2000 some 12% higher than that of 1990.