of or that they are going to participate in the solution rather than just being dictated to by the developed world. I believe that is critical.

Senator BAUCUs. That is an important point.

I would like to go back to your earlier answer then, Ms. Claussen. Why is it that you think the science was worse than we thought? Is there something about the legislative or regulatory process that is involved here?

MS. CLAUSSEN. No. There was no real data in 1986 and 1987 and we had some models which would predict some amount of ozone depletion, but I think, at the time, in 1987, we thought the worst would be two percent. We went ahead in 1987 and got the Protocol taken care of, at least with a 50 percent reduction. Then by the time we turned around, by 1988, it turns out that we actually had data on real depletion and there was no way for us to have predicted that.

But we had set something in place where you could go back and say: well, in light of what we know now, how should we change this? In fact, that is exactly what happened.

Mr. FAY. It points out the difficulty of trying to develop policy when you're living on the edge of scientific development because we are learning as we're going through the policy process, if the science changes the rules on what you need from a policy standpoint, that creates a lot of difficulty for industry trying to make transitions, but at least, as Eileen indicated, we have had a process that allows for that information to be taken into consideration.

Senator BAUCUS. Do you agree, Mr. Fay, with Ms. Claussen, who said that it turned out that the industry could do a lot better than they thought: move faster than they thought they could?

Mr. FAY. I think that the industry is doing much better than we thought.

Senator BAUCUS. Why is that?

Mr. FAY. A lot of it is based on compounds that were already identified but not commercialized, and we have already shaved years off that. But we are still running into problems.

When you talk about technology transfer to the developing countries, well, we have a heck of a technology transfer problem here in the United States in the electronics industry. Companies like Northern Telecom and IBM do very well and can take care of themselves, but 80 percent of the businesses in that industry are small business—and they haven't gotten the word yet in terms of getting technology to them.

The HCFCs are critical to our being able to make the transition on refrigeration technologies, yet, just recently, while we have become almost overly optimistic about the suitability of these compounds as a bridging compound, we all of sudden have some bad toxicology data on those compounds.

There are hurdles to get over. I don't want to paint a totally rosy picture that there are no problems. We still have many hurdles to get over, but we are setting to it.

There is a process internationally that ensures that U.S. companies are going to be dealing with the same rules that their international competitors are going to have to deal with. From that standpoint, there is an effort to maintain a level playing field for every

body. I think that we can move forward rapidly in that kind of an environment.

Senator BAUCUs. This is not the subject of this panel, but since you are so closely involved with CFCs and HFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion-what about global warming? Have you got a gut sense, any of you, of how real that problem is?

Ms. Cook. Mr. Chairman, I would just ask one question. Is the United States Government going to wait for an equivalent of the Antarctic ozone hole before we take action to address the climate problem?

There is considerable scientific concern about this. If there is one lesson that we can learn from this ozone problem it is that the atmosphere has a tendency to give us unexpected surprises. Since we know that the industry has done better than we thought and we know there are cost-effective measures that we can take to reduce CO2 emissions, then we should move forward and not delay.

Senator BAUCUS. So you are saying that the lesson is just to move forward and not delay.

What about the rest of you? Ms. Claussen, what do you think? Ms. CLAUSSEN. I would just love to defer to the next panel, thank you.

Senator BAUCUS. I have asked you the question now, just your honest-to-goodness Eileen Claussen personal point of view. [Laughter.]

Ms. CLAUSSEN. The Eileen Claussen point of view is that anything is possible.

Senator BAUCUS. Well, we know that.

Ms. CLAUSSEN. On both sides.

Senator BAUCUs. All of life is probability, and I'm asking you what the percentage of probability is here.

Ms. CLAUSSEN. Let me put it this way. My office handles a lot of work on methane, which is a greenhouse gas, and we have looked very carefully at what you can do in methane, and I think that we believe that you can stabilize methane emissions at a profit, not just at a low cost, but at a profit. I have been doing a lot of work in that area.

We have not done a lot of work on CO2. I can't answer that question as well, but I think there are more opportunities than people realize.

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. FAY. Let me say that the global warming negotiating process internationally is still, I think, ahead of schedule compared to where the international negotiations went on ozone depletion. Don't forget that the negotiations of ozone depletion started in 1981, and we didn't get a convention until 1985.

I think that there probably are things that make sense from a global warming standpoint that can be done. And I think that we will reach international agreement and eventually address those issues.

From the CFC users' perspective, I know that we are concerned that, while we support the notion of a comprehensive strategy to address global warming issues, on CFCs, it is important in terms of the substitutes that you look at not only the direct contribution but also the indirect contribution. Energy efficiency is very important

in terms of the refrigeration and air-conditioning sector, and that has to be taken into account as part of any global warming analysis.

Senator BAUCUs. I appreciate that. This has been a helpful panel. I just want to very strongly urge the Administration to move more quickly than they have thus far. I think there is an opportunity here for the United States to develop real leadership. Not only to help reduce the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, which helps all of us-no one is going to dispute that-but also, if we would provide more leadership in other areas, that could spill over into other areas.

As we are a leader here, we are going to have more moral force and be able to project American power and policy more easily in some other areas, too. I think it is very helpful to lead rather than follow.

Beyond that, it is an opportunity to develop technologies. It is clear that the more we move ahead, the more likely it is that we are going to develop environmental technologies that we can produce and manufacture here at home for our domestic use and for overseas sales and for production overseas-if we develop the know-how.

We are certainly going in this direction. We know that there is going to be a date when CFCs are going to be phased out. If that is going to happen, we might as well do it more quickly.

I am reminded of a Japanese poem. The translation is: "I always knew one day I would travel down this road, only I didn't know it would be so soon." We might as well get on with it.

I very strongly urge the Administration to get those regulations out on time and to take a very firm leadership role at the next conference. Thank you all very much.

Our next panel consists of Mr. Robert Reinstein, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Health and Natural Resources, the Department of State; and Mr. Richard Mott, the Treaties Officer for the World Wildlife Fund International. The last panel was a good preliminary for this one. Mr. Reinstein, why don't you proceed?

STATEMENT OF ROBERT REINSTEIN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, AND NATURAL RESOURCES, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. REINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to come up here and brief you on the most recent negotiating session. I feel a little lonely here; there were four of them and only two of us, but I guess we'll manage.

The last time I came up here to brief this committee was after the first negotiating session here in Chantilly, outside of Washington. We were frankly rather disappointed at the progress made in Chantilly.

I am pleased to report that at the recent session in Geneva in June, we made a good deal more progress in moving forward. There were more countries: 127 countries in Geneva, 94 developing countries, and a larger number of experts from capitals rather than diplomats from New York and Washington.

It was clear that the developing countries are engaging in the process in a much more active and substantive way. In fact, many brought suggestions and a few brought specific text proposals and so forth, so it was clear that the large number of countries who came to Geneva came to engage substantively in the negotiating process.

We did resolve the remaining procedural issue, which was the election of chairs of the two working groups that had been established in February. We settled on co-chairs for each of the two groups and were able to begin substantive work early in the Geneva session in the working groups.

During the week-plus that we were able to work, we established an atmosphere of cooperation and forward momentum among the countries there. In Working Group I, which deals with commitments, we had a rather extended discussion of principles which are believed by some countries to be what should guide the negotiations.

We had some difficulty with that approach. We felt that it would possibly lead us into endless debate about abstract principles and felt that we should get into more specific discussion of appropriate commitments, actions, to respond to possible global climate change rather than a debate over general principles which could get us into philosophical issues and waste a lot of time.

However, to the degree that countries said that they would want to take up principles, we did submit some principles for consideration. They are included in my written testimony.

The second working group, dealing with mechanisms, made considerable progress. They had fewer texts to work with, fewer differences among those texts, and were able to produce, at least in the area of scientific cooperation, some bracketed text. We will be working in the next session, which will be in Nairobi, toward further development of bracketed text on the institutional aspects of the convention. So we were quite pleased with the progress in Working Group II.

A number of interesting proposals were put on the table by several countries. Perhaps the most interesting one, which was proposed by Japan and supported by the U.K. and France, was something called Pledge and Review. Pledge and Review encourages countries to put forward their own national action plans for responding to climate change. These action plans would then be reviewed by the other parties to the convention.

The concept has not really been well developed yet, but I anticipate a good deal more discussion about it in the September session in Nairobi and in the future negotiating sessions. The next one following is in Geneva in December.

In some informal meetings, the U.S. put forward what is called a non-paper, an unofficial paper on technology cooperation which would focus on country studies and a technology cooperation resources inventory. In doing so, the U.S. advocated a partnership among sovereign countries to facilitate this cooperation, recognizing that technology transfer to developing countries and to countries with economies in transition on a priority basis must be a central aspect of the cooperative effort. Financial resources to support this effort should, in our view, make maximum use of existing bi

lateral and multilateral institutions and should be integrated in such a way that support for general development purposes is in no way diminished.

The pienary also addressed the role of the IPCC The IPCC will be taking to some of the requests from the INC in its future meetings. There is a meeting of Working Group or response strateges bext week Genera Te tere to chair that

Since returning to Washington, we have briefed environmental BRODDE END MOs gold and we are very pleased to have the opportary to one you here today I would be happy to try to answer any questions - Bee that did trot exceed my time. Senator BADDLE Thank you Mr. Reinstein

STATEMENT OF RICHARD N. MOTT TREATIES OFFICER, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INTERNATIONAL

Mr Mom. Thank you Mr Chairman. for the opportunity to testify today. of st as Treaties Office with WWF international in Switzerland and on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund. U.S. and the WWF famity of organizations worldwide.

Our concern with the issue of gioual climate change stems from the WWF mission which in short, is to preserve the abundance and diversity of hie on earth which is threatened by gioca, climate change around the world in piant, animal, and numar reaims.

I will speak today to the recent history and present outlook as we see n for the international negotiations on a framework convention for signature next June and transmit to you the growing concerns of WWF and of our colleagues throughout the environmental community that prospects are dimming for a successful agreement in the next 11 montas.

in particular, we are troubied by the role that the United States Government has played to date in obstructing progress toward ar effective and meaningful agreement. We urge you and the Senate to become more actively involved in the nope that you can neip to change the current policy of the United States Government.

Nearly three years ago. the US investec considerable financial and diplomatic resources as well as its own credibility in an intergovernmental consultative process or climate change. That initial process of the IPCC or intergovernmental Fanel on Climate Change. delivered a report last Fal. finding that the greenhouse efiect is reai; that the current emission rates will commit us to a one degree Centigrade temperature rise by 2025; and that the ecological and human impacts are potentially severe. The IPCC concluded, moreover, that reductions of over 60 percent of current emissions ieveis of the long-lived gases, including CO2, would be required to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at today's levels.

Following on the IPCC's sobering report, we are now engaged in an intergovernmental negotiation on climate change, stalled on what must be considered the most fundamental objective of its near-term mission. That is agreement among the industrialized countries to curb their disproportionate contribution to the global buildup of warming gases. The negotiations are stalled on this issue principally because of the opposition of the U.S. in the love of