CLIMATE WATCH
BRIEF

AN INFORMATION UPDATE FROM THE GLOBAL CLIMATE COALITION
September 1997

Volume 5, Issue 3

"Most modelers now agree that the climate models
will not be able to link greenhouse warming
unambiguously to human actions for a decade or
more."

--Science magazine article by Richard A. Kerr, May 16, 1997

New Economic Studies to Show Cost of Climate Treaty:
American Jobs At Risk
Two new economic studies to be released in September are expected to show that reducing greenhouse gas
emissions in the United States will come with a hefty price tag and be paid for by American families. The
studies, details of which were not available at press time (but stay tuned for a special edition of Climate
Watch in October), were conducted independently by organized labor and the Global Climate Coalition.
The studies are said to predict significant losses of American jobs if climate proposals currently under
negotiation by the United Nations are adopted. These proposals call for drastic reductions in energy use
by the United States, but do not require similar reductions by developing countries such as India, China
and Mexico.
The Times They Are A Changin': Scary Headlines of Past Not
Justified; Rush to Judgment by World Panel on Climate
Change Undercut by Second Look at Computer Models
As negotiators look ahead to a final round of climate negotiations in October in advance of a
expected climate agreement in December, it's worth taking a look back at how media coverage of
the issue has changed. At first, headline writers bought it hook, line and sinker. Global Warming
No Longer in Doubt, said one. Experts Agree Humans Have Discernible' Effect on Climate, echoed
another. A chorus of certainty. No more doubts. That was only a year and a half ago. Now, as
the U.S. and other nations consider a climate change treaty that would have a devastating impact
on world economies, there is major disagreement about the basis for any action. The report's
foundation (that touched off the headlines) is crumbling. Here's a quick look at the details.
,7

Things Not Always As They Appear: UN Report, Ignored If's, And's
and But's
Inspiring the media excitement in 1995 was the official summary statement of the UN sponsored
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pcq report. It said the half-degree rise in global
temperatures since the 19th Century may bear a "fingerprint" of human activity. Headlines shrieked.
Global policy makers were emboldened. Clinton-Gore Administration negotiators pushed on, despite
cries for caution from U.S. industry, labor and consumers on the harm that will come to America if
binding - and competitively unfair - global climate rules are put in place. SCIENCE magazine cools
off the global warming media hype, shows the uncertainties that were not clear in the IPCC report:
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...IFCC scientists now say that neither the
public nor many scientists appreciate how many
ifs, and's and but's peppered the report. "It's
unfortunate that many people read the media
hype before they read the [IPCC] chapter" on
the detection of greenhouse warming, says
climate modeler Benjamin Santer of LawV

rence Livermore National Laboratory in
Livermore, California, the lead author of the
chapter. "I think the caveats are there. We say
quite clearly that a few scientists would say the
attribution issue was a done deal..."
(From SCIENCE, Vol. 276, May 16, 1997.
www.sciencemag.org)

Congress Got a Bum Steer, Too, Science Reveals
This gets complicated. This business of the "fingerprint" — which has been used to justify harsh
action against the U.S. economy — was seen by the computer modelers when they used data on the
effect of pollutant hazes or aerosols on climate. Modelers assumed that soil, dust, particles from
burned fuel, ash, soot, agricultural burning — all reflecting sunlight — both shade and cool the earth
surface beneath them. But wait a minute. Says SCIENCE:
his GISS colleagues pointed out that recent
...[T]he assumptions about how hazes affect climate
measurements suggest that aerosols don't just cool;
may have taken a hit recently from Climatologist and
they also warm the atmosphere by absorbing
modular James Hansen of NASA's GISS [Goddard
sunlight. The net effect of this reflection and
Institute for Space Studies] -- the man who told
absorption, Hansen estimates, would be small — too
Congress in 1988 that he believed "with a high
small to have much effect on temperature...
degree of confidence" that greenhouse warming had
arrived. In a recent paper, Hansen and
(SCIENCE, Vol. 276, May 16, 1997)

Hobble the U.S. Economy and Damage the Environment?
Agreement on a climate change treaty could be advanced in December — at a UN organized
meeting in Kyoto, Japan. Clinton-Gore negotiators have pledged their support for binding targets
and a timetable for achieving them. GCC Chairman William F. O'Keefe has pointed out that
agreement is moving toward placing limits on the use of energy in the U.S. to reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions, while exempting China, India and other major emitting countries from
comparable restrictions. A DOE worst-case scenario says policy constraints on U.S. industries,
which are not put on similar firms in other, less developed countries, would mean severe adverse
environmental effects. Industries move to countries with fewer environmental safeguards resulting
in a net increase in emissions. Energy use rules would also tilt in favor of emerging economies -and these countries become the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
What Do 2,000 Economists Actually Mean?
Without any economic analyses to support its case for climate action, the Clinton Administration is
relying more and more on a petition signed by more than 2,000 economists apparently endorsing a gettough, rush-ahead economic policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But in a panel discussion
sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, two of the petition's sponsors explained a somewhat
different view. "My personal view," said Yale economist William Nordhaus, "is that if you had anything that
looked like a sensible policy, it wouldprobably not have reductions in global emissions over the next ten. or
twenty. or thirty years." Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson told Congress that "stabilizing emissions at 1990
levels is not something that can be justified on economic grounds... When we think about setting the target, the
Rio agreement is the wrong startingpoint."
CLIMATE WATCH BRIEF is published monthly by the Global Climate Coalition, an organization of business trade
associations and private companies established to coordinate business participation in the scientific and policy debate on
global climate change. Permission to quote or reprint is not necessary, although attribution is appreciated.
Any questions? Call Tom Calcagni in the GCC Press Office (202) 974-5036.

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