WASHINGTON (AP) -- While no big fan of the Kyoto climate treaty, the DuPont Co., says it is on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by next year. But will the chemical maker get credit for the reductions if the treaty ever is ratified?
A Senate bill would guarantee that companies like DuPont would get credit for making voluntary reductions in climate-changing emissions if the treaty goes into effect.But while the legislation, which has bipartisan support, was viewed a few months ago as a shoo-in for passage, many environmentalists are having second thoughts. And much of the business community is shying away because companies fear support would mark them as being in favor of international accord on climate change reached at Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997.
Over the past year a growing number of Fortune 500 companies, including DuPont, United Technologies, BP-Amoco and utilities such as American Electric Power have made commitments to voluntarily curtail the greenhouse emissions they produce -- mainly by increased efficiencies that reduce energy use and, in turn curtail carbon dioxide emissions.
But with the 1997 Kyoto treaty, which requires greenhouse gas reductions, nowhere close to being ratified, these companies worry that by making early reductions they may, in fact, eventually be put at a competitive disadvantage. Companies that took no voluntary action would be able to start at a higher benchmark if the treaty is implemented.
"The least our government can do is to protect those companies who have decided on their own to make voluntary contributions to the general goal of climate mitigation," says Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., a co-sponsor of the bill.
Chafee, opening a Senate hearing on the bill today, said he was aware that some critics had suggested "this is a dark plot ... a big profit scheme" for industry. Such a view is unfounded, he countered. The alternative was "to do nothing ... to begin dealing with what could turn out to be a substantial environmental and economic problem," said Chafee.
Late last year, when a similar bill was introduced, environmental groups across the spectrum lauded the initiative, which at that time was led by Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Connie Mack, R-Fla., as a sign of Congress would take some action on climate change.
Early action credit would spur companies to address climate change without the Kyoto treaty actually in force, the sponsors hoped.
But since then, more than a half dozen environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for International Environmental Law have voiced opposition to the bill. For different reasons, business groups representing utilities, the petroleum industry, manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce have refused to endorse it.
"We're not supporting it," says John Novak, director of environmental activities for the Edison Electric Institute, although its members, the nation's electric utilities, have claimed to have prevented the release of millions of tons of greenhouse pollution.
Industry sources say that behind the business community's opposition is a fear by companies that the bill is another step toward "backdoor implementation" of the Kyoto treaty already signed by Clinton but facing strong opposition in Congress.
Lieberman views the early-credit legislation as an attempt to unite "both sides of the global warming wars" and spur companies to take voluntary actions on climate change that they otherwise might not.
Eileen Claussen, executive director of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says assurances are needed for companies to commit to greenhouse gas reductions, or else these same companies may end up at a disadvantage competitively when a treaty is put in place.
"It is clearly not in our interest for companies that do the right thing by voluntarily attempting to slow the rate of greenhouse gases entering our atmosphere to be penalized and economically harmed for their efforts," says Claussen, whose group includes 22 major corporations that have pledged voluntary actions on climate change.
Fred Krupp, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, is among the legislation's strongest boosters, although he says the bill must require that emissions reductions be independently verified before credits are given to a company.
"It's a way of getting the process started," said Krupp, who acknowledged that many of his colleagues in the environmental community have withdrawn their support.
Many environmentalists argue that it would allow companies to use unproven emission reductions to gain credits that eventually could be worth millions of dollars in an emissions trading market.