Friday, June 15, 2001

China Said to Sharply Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions In the debate on global climate change it has long been a given that China, with its huge population and endless coal reserves, would overtake the United States early this century as the biggest source of the atmospheric pollution that scientists believe is warming the planet. That specter of runaway Chinese emissions has been cited by President Bush as a major reason for describing as "fatally flawed" the 1997 Kyoto agreement to protect the climate. The treaty exempts developing countries, including China, from its initial, binding limits on the output of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that scientists believe are causing traumatic changes in the climate. But treaty obligation or not, China has already achieved a dramatic slowing in its emissions of carbon dioxide in the last decade, Chinese and Western energy experts say. That record of progress has pushed further into the horizon the day that China will surpass the United States as the lead culprit, and it is something that Mr. Bush seems to have overlooked in his harsh appraisal. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/15/world/15CHIN.html?pagewanted=all

Monday, June 11, 2001

A Skeptical Europe Awaits Bush on 5-Day Trip It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," began an opinion piece in the conservative daily ABC, "than for a rich man to be executed in the United States." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/world/11EURO.html