Klimathotet - Här lite info om hur allt började. Bush den äldre var rätt så aktiv som klimathjälte visar det sig!

Intervjuer om The Bureaucratic Beginnings: The powers that be have always envisioned a global energy regulatory system.
Bush ska ha varit den som drog igång det hela 1992.
http://www.co2science.org/video/cop/c ... ckground.php#bureaucratic

THE EARTH SUMMIT; Bush Leaves Rio With Shots At Foreign and U.S. Critics
By MICHAEL WINES,
Published: Sunday, June 14, 1992 NYTimes.com

President Bush left the Earth Summit today firing parting shots at his many critics, saying Americans are "the leaders, not the followers," on environmental issues and will be "pre-eminent" in carrying out accords signed here.

Speaking at a news conference at his seafront hotel, Mr. Bush dismissed suggestions that his appearance here had not gone well and reserved some of his criticism for domestic rather than global issues.

Mr. Bush, who agreed to sign only a watered-down version of the summit treaty to reduce the threat of global warming, proposed on Friday that the nations gather on Jan. 1 to report specific plans to reduce emissions of pollutants that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere. The treaty sets a deadline of the end of the century for meeting emission control goals.

At the news conference, Mr. Bush rejected the notion that his call for an early start on the global warming issue was not welcomed by world leaders.

"The developed nations want to meet the commitments they've signed up for, so I've not found that it wasn't well received at all," Mr. Bush said. "In fact, Bill Reilly told me it was well received, and we will be there with specific plans."

Support for Meeting Seen
Administration officials said today that some other leaders had told Mr. Bush and William K. Reilly, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, that the President's plans for the meeting had merit.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/14/wor ... reign-and-us-critics.html


August 16, 1992|By Peter Honey, The Baltimore Sun

What sets George Bush apart from his presidential predecessor is that he promised to be "the environmental president."

That Ronald Reagan never tried, matters naught. It is by his pledge that Mr. Bush will be judged, and by his pledge that inevitably he will be found wanting.

No one, though, can say he did nothing.

He put William Reilly, a career conservationist, rather than a lawyer or political crony, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.

He signed the most ambitious clean air act in history.

He boosted global forestry assistance, stopped ivory imports, initiated an international oil spill treaty, signed a hazardous waste convention and froze offshore oil drilling.

And after four years in office, he had little to show for it except ridicule at the Rio Earth Summit in Brazil -- firstly because he would not take the lead in international efforts to reduce 'N emission of greenhouse gases, and secondly because of his refusal to sign a global treaty aimed to conserve endangered species.

Yet few of the 170-odd countries that took part in the summit this summer can boast anything like the United States' expenditure on pollution control, which currently runs to about $130 billion a year, or 2 percent of gross domestic product, and is rising.

Environmental economist Paul Portney estimates that costs of the Clean Air Act, alone, may reach $29 billion to $36 billion a year when it is fully implemented by 2005.

But expenditure alone, analysts say, does not necessarily prove efficiency of pollution control.

For example, a recent study by the Rand Institute suggests that 88 cents of every dollar spent by insurers on Superfund cleanup goes toward legal fees and administrative costs, rather than the actual cleanup of toxic waste sites.

Meanwhile, EPA figures show that Americans generate twice as much hazardous waste today as they did a decade ago.

The issue of cost vs. safety has dominated the environmental debate during the Bush presidency, as it did throughout the 1980s. Mr. Bush's readiness to cut or reject environmental programs for reasons of cost -- either in terms of jobs or financial expenditure -- especially during the latter half of his term, often angered environmentalists.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992 ... n-air-act-hazardous-waste