제 목 : Conference Calls for Binding Measures on Emissions
일 자 : 1996년 11월
제공처 : Safety ＆ Health
Representatives of 150 governments gathered at a conference held in
Geneva earlier this year to consider ways to combat global warming.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, they made a significant
step toward establishing binding legal requirements for greenhouse-gas
emission reductions. An agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions
was first made at the Earth Summit in l992, but this was voluntary
and few countries have made any progress toward the small reductions
called for. A key to the change in Geneva was the U.S. governrment's
reversal ofits policy of supporting voluntary efforts.
However, many oil- and coal producing countries, worried about
the economic effects of a drop in demand for fossil fuels on their
economies, did not support legally binding requrrements.
The conference also suppored the United Nations' Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change's scientific report, which found that
human activities influenced changes in the global climate.
The report says that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases
caused by agriculture and the burning of fossil fuels "would lead to
a dangerous interference with the climate system" and could cause
severe droughts; hurricanes; the spread of disease, such as malaria,
into areas previously unaffected; extinction of animal and plant
species; and could flood island states and coastal areas.
The aim of the next conference, to be held in Japan in l997,
will be to draw up a commitment for greenhouse emission reductions
to be made by industrialized countries.
|
