U.S. May Offer Funds to Fight Global Warming

WASHINGTON —  The Bush Administration, hoping to break a deadlock in a global warming treaty, is expected today to offer $125 million to help developing countries reduce their production of the “greenhouse gases” that scientists say contribute to the potentially disastrous warming of Earth’s climate.

At the same time, officials may put forth a list of steps that the United States would take to stabilize its production of carbon dioxide, which accounts for nearly a fourth of the world’s total.

“The game plan is in place,” an Administration official privy to the deliberations said late Wednesday. “There is a . . . possibility that the last details could hit a snag, but everyone has signed off on the approach.”

Under the plan, Administration sources said, the United States would announce its intention to put $50 million a year over the next two years into the general fund of the United Nations and a World Bank-sponsored fund, known as the Global Environmental Facility, that was set up last May.

Another $25 million over the two years would be earmarked to help developing countries assess their greenhouse gas emissions and to devise plans for controlling them.

U.S. negotiators, attending a treaty session at the United Nations, also will present a list of steps that Administration officials contend could take the United States well along the road toward stabilizing its own production of greenhouse pollutants--particularly carbon dioxide generated by the burning of fossil fuels.

The steps include a push to bring highly efficient new lighting fixtures into mass use and attempts to produce a new generation of more efficient refrigerators. The plan also would put more emphasis on efforts already under way, such as the drive to switch to low-polluting natural gas.

Although not all scientists agree on the degree of danger from the phenomenon known as global warming, a massive study sanctioned by the United Nations has estimated that global temperatures could rise as much as 7 degrees by the end of the next century, causing a destructive rise in sea level and shifts in agricultural patterns.

For more than a year, an international effort has been under way to develop an agreement to combat the problem.

The apparent decision by the Administration comes at a time when President Bush is under increasing political pressure at home. Among his other troubles, he has been perceived as failing to live up to his 1988 campaign promise to make the environment one of his Administration’s priorities.

The Administration also has been pressured for more than two years to agree to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. Its response has been to suggest that such a commitment would cause massive economic problems. The Administration also had refused any commitment of financial aid to developing countries.

As a result, the United States has been considered the chief obstacle to completion of the global warming agreement in time for it to be signed in June at a world environmental summit in Brazil.

Environmentalists welcomed the possibility of a major shift in the United States’ position but remained skeptical. “Coming at this stage it could open the door to a meaningful agreement,” said Rafe Pomerance, a senior staff member of the World Resources Institute.

“If this goes forward, it could make an agreement happen in April. What remains to be seen is whether they offer steps that would make it possible for them to join the Europeans in a commitment to stabilization.”

In the early phases of the treaty negotiations, the United States insisted that all greenhouse gases be considered together, so it could take credit for its major reductions in the use of chlorofluorocarbons, which damage Earth’s ozone layer.

But environmentalists and European governments have been adamant in focusing on the problem of carbon dioxide. Their position has been strengthened by recent scientific research showing that ozone depletion in the stratosphere actually causes some cooling.