Major corporations take threat of global warming regulations seriously

Many members of the Business Roundtable – which represents about 150 companies that are mostly U.S.-based – have long challenged the science behind global warming. But they are sufficiently concerned about the threat of tough government regulations to reduce greenhouse gases that they are preparing voluntary programmes to measure greenhouse-gas emissions as a first step toward reducing them.

Some U.S.-based multinationals have already pledged to cut their emissions significantly.

They believe they will be forced to do so anyway in foreign markets that – unlike the United States – have signed the tough international Kyoto treaty.

The Business Roundtable expects to ask all its members to measure their current levels of greenhouse-gas emissions and then pledge to reduce them by a specific amount over time.

Several trade groups – including the American Chemistry Council and the American Petroleum Institute – are also planning to announce voluntary pledges to make emissions cuts.

But some companies worry that they will have a tough time making even small cuts.

Source: Jeffery Ball and John J. Fialka, Global Warming Prompts Action by Corporations, Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2002.

For text (WSJ subscribers) http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1036721080285665148.djm
For more on Global Warming http://globalwarming.ncpa.org/

FMF Policy Bulletin\12 November 2002