Clinton Seeks Global Effort on Warming

President Clinton launched a public search Monday for a solution to global warming, declaring that the United States will make an “equitable reduction” in its greenhouse gas emissions if other nations do, too.

Spending the morning at a daylong conference on climate change organized by the White House, the president heard largely a “we can do it” message built around high-tech answers to the problem. He missed the discussion of the down-to-earth economic consequences of combating global warming, which have divided his senior advisors and left the U.S. position in international negotiations unsettled.

Clinton summoned an array of global warming experts to four seminars Monday to turn a spotlight on the issue, on which representatives of nearly 170 nations are trying to work out a treaty.

Most of the measures Clinton heard about involved such esoteric options as photovoltaic cells, magnetic levitation and conversion of ocean-farmed algae to energy-producing gas, prompting him to say: “I hope tomorrow’s headline isn’t, ‘Clinton advocates more research on levitation.’ ”

His broader point, however, was that the nation must find practical, affordable solutions--without overlooking those that seem now to be far-fetched--and it must get the rest of the world to do its share, both in reducing greenhouse gases and adopting energy-saving practices.

The potential economic consequences of reducing energy use provided a tough counterpoint to the political rhetoric and technological optimism.

“We are greatly underestimating the size and complexity of this undertaking,” said William D. Nordhaus, a professor of economics at Yale University.

The public discussion Monday echoed the private debate raging within the administration’s private councils, which are developing a U.S. position to take to Bonn in two weeks for a treaty-negotiating session. The negotiators are pressing to produce an agreement that can be sealed at a meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in December.

One position given consideration by the administration would commit industrial nations to reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the primary gases linked to global warming, to 1990 levels, by the year 2010.

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Poorer nations have balked because they fear that it would unfairly stifle their economic growth. But Clinton made clear that gaining Senate ratification of a treaty would require that all countries take part, even if not at the same level. As enticement, he said, needy nations should get technological or other support from economically advanced countries.

Nordhaus, who was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers, said just ratcheting back to 1990 levels--and Europe and Japan are pushing for even deeper cuts--would require a 30% reduction of anticipated emissions. He compared the eventual impact to the oil shocks that stunned the United States in 1973 and 1979.

The meeting corresponded with the administration’s need to build a foundation of domestic political support for action. It is facing a $13-million advertising campaign sponsored by industries challenging the justification for significant measures.

A large number of experts--but not all--are warning that if the world does not restrict carbon dioxide, methane gas and nitrous oxide, given off when coal, oil and natural gas are burned, environmental havoc will eventually result. They warn of drought, melting ice caps, tropical illness reaching now-temperate latitudes and rising sea levels swamping shore communities.

The difficulty facing diplomats in Bonn and Kyoto cannot be overestimated, said Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Global warming is “the most difficult question that has ever been negotiated internationally,” she said.