WORLD : U.S. Balks at Atmosphere Plan
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NOORDWIJK, Netherlands — The United States and Japan today refused to agree to drastic measures to curb the warming of Earth’s atmosphere, which experts fear could have catastrophic consequences.
At a 68-nation conference on the “greenhouse effect,” both nations said they would not endorse a commitment to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide, a major cause of the atmospheric warm-up, by the year 2000.
“We believe in a reduction of carbon dioxide,” said William K. Reilly, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “But we’re not prepared to say by what time and by what level.”
Conference sources said Britain and the Soviet Union also had strong reservations about the wording of the final communique, expected to be published Tuesday.
The Dutch, hosts of the two-day ministerial meeting, had hoped to align the participating nations unanimously behind a commitment to stabilize emissions by the end of the century, and to begin reducing them from 2005 onward.
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