Global Warming Issue Divides Conferees

Environmental ministers of major world powers sharply disagreed here on Sunday over a call by the Dutch government to stabilize the emission of carbon dioxide and other pollutants causing a global greenhouse effect and threatening a disastrous warming of the Earth’s climate.

The United States was among several industrialized countries holding out against a proposal to stabilize the emission of greenhouse gases at current levels by the year 2000, with reductions thereafter.

Informed sources said the United States was pressing instead for language that would call for feasibility studies rather than a firm commitment to stabilization of the emissions by the year 2000.

Britain, Japan, the Soviet Union and Brazil were understood to be among others favoring the less aggressive approach.

Dutch Environment Minister Ed Nijpels said Sunday night that the British delegation had moved to support the stabilization commitment and that there had been movement in the U.S. position. A senior U.S. official, however, disputed Nijpels’ account.

Officials of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the State Department began negotiations with their counterparts from 61 countries here Friday in an effort to draft a declaration for signing by environmental ministers.

After nearly three days of work by government experts and the first round of private talks between environmental ministers, it was still unclear whether the biggest international conference yet held on global warming would reach a consensus or end in disagreement, with the United States opposing the course favored by environmental activists.

Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly arrived along with other ministers Sunday and joined closed-door deliberations on still-disputed provisions of the declaration.

U.S. officials came to the gathering uncomfortable. In discussions in Washington, a working group of the White House Domestic Policy Council was understood to have rejected a plan by Reilly to endorse a stabilization proposal similar to the one offered here by the Dutch.

Also rejected was a suggestion by Reilly to invite environmental officials to Washington next year to begin negotiations on an international treaty controlling the emission of greenhouse gases.

Of all the pollutants contributing to the warming of the atmosphere, the most significant is carbon dioxide, and the United States is responsible for nearly one-fourth of the world’s annual emission.

At the same time, Washington has resisted a firm timetable for stabilizing and then reducing greenhouse gases. Members of the U.S. delegation have also opposed such language specifically citing carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning carbon-based fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

White House science adviser D. Allan Bromley, who is a member of the U.S. delegation at the conference, said last week that he is opposed to initiating any specific program solely aimed at attacking global warming until both the science and the economics of the issue are better understood.

In addition to its disagreement with the Dutch-sponsored call for a deadline on reversing the buildup of greenhouse gases, the Bush Administration has opposed trying to take major initiatives through ad hoc meetings such as the huge gathering at this North Sea summer resort near The Hague.

The Administration has commited itself to working on the problem through the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.