Bush Urges More Study of Climate Change Data : Environment: European delegates to a White House conference accuse the President of failing to take action.

The Bush Administration on Tuesday resisted European calls for immediate action to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions and instead warned that the nations first need to consider the economic consequences of such limits and know more about the causes of global warming.

But after the opening round of a two-day, 17-nation conference on global warming convened by the White House, there was no indication that President Bush and his top environmental and economic policy officials had dissuaded European governments. Some already have launched efforts to abate production of carbon dioxide, the principal culprit among the so-called “greenhouse gases.”

Stabilization of carbon dioxide produced from the burning of fossil fuels “is not a matter of economic constraints,” said Dutch environmental minister Hans Alders, “but it is a matter of economic will.”

His country, he said, will pursue its objective of stabilizing its production of carbon dioxide at present levels by 1995 and begin reductions thereafter.

Opening the conference as the United States began its buildup to Sunday’s Earth Day anniversary celebration, Bush told delegates that environmental and economic welfare represent “two sides of the same coin.”

“Environmental policies that ignore the economic factor, the human factor, are destined to fail,” he said. “But there’s another reason to consider the economic factor when the issue is the environment--there is no better ally in service of our environment than strong economies.”

Several European delegations arrived for the meeting unhappy over the agenda because it provided no opportunity for discussion of government actions. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is understood to have written Bush expressing Germany’s interest in taking up policy issues. Environmentalists accused the Administration of using the conference as a delaying tactic and retreating from an agreement to stabilize its carbon dioxide emissions “as soon as possible.”

But White House science adviser D. Allan Bromley and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly responded that economic considerations had been ignored last year at an international meeting when Europeans called for a commitment to stabilize carbon dioxide production at present levels by the turn of the century.

Although incontrovertible evidence is still years away, many scientists believe the continued production of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and chlorofluorocarbons could increase Earth’s temperature by as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit a century from now, with disastrous consequences.

But ranking Administration officials spent the day Tuesday pointing out scientific and economic uncertainties. The officials included Bromley, Reilly, Council of Economic Advisers’ Chairman Michael J. Boskin, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins, Environmental Quality Council Chairman Michael DeLand and others.

In an interview, Watkins said the United States should proceed with steps that have benefits not limited to the global warming problem. He said it might be five years before scientific and economic data is complete enough for a national commitment to a stabilization strategy.

The few studies now available, Boskin said, suggest that it would cost a minimum of 1% of the United States’ yearly gross national product--or roughly $50 billion a year--and perhaps several times that, for the United States to meet the kind of goals set by the Dutch, the Norwegians and the Germans.

“Those who are most fearful of possible future global warming are often impatient with discussions of mitigation costs,” he said. “They sometimes contend that no price is too high to pay for actions that might prevent even the slightest warming. With respect, my view of the concept of global stewardship is much broader and does not allow me to agree.

“I am not arguing that we should be unconcerned about possible global warming, or that no actions to limit greenhouse emissions make sense,” he said. “My point is simply that the stakes are high in terms of the well-being of real human beings, as well as in terms of the global environment.

“We face complex decisions with potentially huge consequences. It would be irresponsible to pretend that the huge uncertainties we face do not exist. It would be equally irresponsible not to invest in research that can reduce those uncertainties.”

Environmentalists sharply challenge projections that carbon dioxide stabilization could cost the United States $50 billion and perhaps much more every year for many years.

Economic models, said Mary Beth Zimmerman of the Alliance to Save Energy, fail to take into account benefits, such as improved health, derived from a switch away from fossil fuels.

The delegates will spend several hours today in closed workshops, putting together what conference leaders Bromley, Boskin and DeLand hope will be a consensus report to be issued after Bush closes the meeting.

Bromley, who coordinates the U.S. scientific research program on global climate change, hopes to see delegates agree to an international program along the same lines, even though a cooperative program is under way under the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We would like this conference to be a contributing factor to the development of an international research program that can provide us with the knowledge, both scientific and economic, needed to understand and respond to global change,” he told delegates. “We must merge science and economics with policy to a degree that has not been done before.”