Bush stands firm on opposition to Kyoto pact

WASHINGTON — President Bush is holding fast to his rejection of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming, despite a fresh report from 300 scientists in the United States and seven other nations that shows Arctic temperatures are rising.

This week, a four-year study of the Arctic will document that the region is warming rapidly, affecting global climates.

Scientists project that industrial gases such as carbon dioxide will make the Arctic warmer still, which would raise the level of the seas and make the Earth hotter. The world's atmosphere now includes about 380 parts per million of carbon dioxide, compared with 280 parts per million in 1800, according to scientists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Kyoto international climate treaty last week, which puts it into effect early next year without U.S. participation. The treaty requires industrial nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels.

"President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Headed into his second term, Bush continues to believe he "made the right leadership choice" by repudiating the U.N.-sponsored pact negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, Connaughton said.

Former President Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, negotiated the treaty for the United States and had a major role in its final form.

"Kyoto was a bad treaty for the United States," said Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Leavitt added in an interview Friday that climate change is not an issue the administration dismisses. "I know that it is of importance to the president that we continue to make progress," he said.

So far, Bush's policy has amounted to spending a few billion dollars each year on research.

White House officials contend the drastic cuts in pollution that the treaty would have imposed on the United States would have cost nearly $400 billion and almost 5 million jobs. Many would have shifted to other countries that were not obligated to reduce their pollution levels, the Bush administration says.

Russia, by contrast, can increase its pollution substantially under the treaty with a positive rather than detrimental impact on its job market, the officials say.