EEE会議（米上院の地球温暖化問題への姿勢）................................................................031102


米国連邦議会の上院で１０月３０日、地球温暖化防止法案が反対５５、賛成４３で否
決されました。共和党のマッケイン議員と民主党のリーバーマン議員の提案による同
法案は、電力会社や企業にCO2などの排出制限を課すもので、内容的には京都議定書
に近いとされています。前回(１９９７年）の上院審議では９５対０で否決され、京
都議定
書離脱に繋がったものですが、そのときに較べれば、上院でも最近賛成派が大幅に増
えてきたことは明らかで、州レベルでも賛成派（主として民主党の知事）が増加傾向
に
あるようです。
これは必ずしも京都議定書への早期復帰を意味するものではありませんが、米国も
最大のCO2排出国として温暖化防止にもっと真面目に取り組むべきだという意見が
盛り上がってきていることは確かなようです。　一貫して温暖化防止の重要性を訴
え、
ブッシュ政権の怠慢を厳しく批判しているNew York Timesは、１１月１日の社説で次
の
ように述べています。ご参考まで。
--KK

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Promising Vote on Global Warming

Published: November 1, 2003

John McCain has failed in his first attempt to persuade his Republican
colleagues in the Senate to give the issue of global warming the urgent
attention it deserves. By a margin of  55 to 43 on Thursday, the Senate
rejected a proposal he sponsored with Joseph Lieberman to impose mandatory
caps on the emissions from utilities and other industries that scientists
believe are heavily responsible for global warming. But Mr. McCain, as we
know, does not give up easily. He started his quest for campaign finance
reform in 1995 and prevailed six years later. He promises to be just as
tenacious on this issue.

The outcome was heartening on several levels. Mr. McCain and Mr. Lieberman
are now within striking distance of a majority. This reflects not only
lobbying from environmental groups but a growing realization among
governors, mayors and businesses large and small that the long-term costs of
climate change could be far greater than the costs of bringing it under
control.

The bill also found surprising support among Democrats and Republicans from
big industrial and coal-producing states, where opposition to any
legislation having to do with curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases usually runs high. This support materialized despite
furious opposition from reactionaries like Oklahoma's James Inhofe, who
stubbornly denies the science of global warming, and from the White House ?
which, true to form, warned of an economic Armageddon.

The bill is in fact a modest version of the 1997 Kyoto accord, which
President Bill Clinton embraced but Mr. Bush rejected. Kyoto would indeed
have required big changes in how we use and produce energy, as any
determined assault on global warming eventually must. But McCain-Lieberman
aims merely to accustom the nation gently to doing business in a different
way. One suspects that the Senate will someday wake up to the fact that the
White House sees bogymen where none exist.