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 Editorials | Environmental | January 2007 
US Chief Executives Urge Bush to Tackle Global Warming
 Justin Cole - Agence France Presse
Some of corporate America's largest companies, including Alcoa, General Electric and DuPont, urged US President George W. Bush and Congress to act swiftly to tackle global warming.
The chief executives of nine US corporations, who formed the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), displayed a united front as they called on Bush to support mandatory caps on businesses' greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's time for the nation's political leaders to come together and act," Duke Energy chief executive Jim Rogers told reporters at a press conference at the National Press Club here.
GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt also called for action to cut greenhouse gases, which many scientists blame for global warming, saying: "We should have goals that are visible."
The corporate chieftains issued their call to arms a day before the US president makes his annual State of the Union speech. Some pundits believe Bush may address climate change in his remarks.
But White House press secretary Tony Snow said "binding economy-wide carbon caps" are not part of Bush's approach, and that the US president believes industry must come up with innovations to address climate change.
The administration withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to curb greenhouses gases, in 2001.
Immelt said "information exchanges" had already occurred between the administration and USCAP over its objectives.
Asked by AFP if the White House was supportive of USCAP's stance, Immelt replied: "Yeah, but it's one of those things where you're going to have lots of different points of view."
"In general I would say it's a friendly discussion, not an unfriendly discussion."
The powerful coalition, whose members run dozens of industrial plants, also called for urgent US government action to implement a cap-and-trade program, which would enable the trading of emissions permits.
The CEOs said cuts in greenhouse gas emissions make sense environmentally, but also make good business sense and would help America cut its addiction to oil.
The CEOs of Alcoa, PG and E, Lehman Brothers, FPL Group, DuPont, Caterpillar, and PNM Resources also attended the press conference. BP America is a member of the alliance too.
The executives said the coalition had briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers on its proposals, which are also laid out on the www.us-cap.org website, and said they wanted other firms to join their ranks.
Several bills on global warming have been inked by Democratic lawmakers since the party regained control of Congress this month from Bush's Republican party.
USCAP's members, who began meeting last summer, called on the new Democratic Congress to establish mandatory targets that would allow only a five percent rise in current US greenhouse gas emissions within five years of legislative action.
Future targets should then seek to cut emissions to between 70 and 90 percent of today's levels within fifteen years, and emissions should be slashed by between 60 and 80 percent from current levels by 2050.
The Texas utility TXU Corp. said in a statement that it supported some of USCAP's aims.
US corporations have shown increased concerns about global warming in recent years, especially since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast in August 2005.
Wal-Mart Stores opened its first "High-Efficiency" store in Missouri on Friday claiming it uses 20 percent less energy than its other superstores.
And Insurers State Farm and Allstate are not seeking new home insurance business along wide stretches of the US east coast amid fears of bigger hurricanes, which some scientists have attributed to climate change.
USCAP also groups the non-governmental Environmental Defense group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the World Resources Institute. |
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