U.S. report sees steady rate of emissions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration estimates in a report being completed for the United Nations that U.S. emissions of gases that contribute to global warming will grow in the next decade at a rate nearly equal to that of the past 10 years, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

According to the United States Climate Action Report, a copy of which was obtained by the newspaper, the administration's climate policy will result in emissions growing 11 percent in 2012 from 2002, compared with an 11.6 rate in the past decade, the Times said, citing the Environmental Protection Agency.

The report, which is more than a year late, also describes growing risks to water supplies, coasts and ecosystems around the country from anticipated temperature and precipitation changes driven by the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the Times said.

But is also stressed projections showing progress toward President George W. Bush's goal as expressed in a 2002 speech that emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases grow at a slower rate than the economy, according to the Times, which said it was given a draft of the report by a government employee upon request.

The newspaper quoted a spokeswoman for the White House on environmental matters, Kristen Hellmer, as saying: "The Climate Action Report will show that the president's portfolio of actions addressing climate change and his unparalleled financial commitments are working."

But a host of climate experts described the projected emissions as unacceptable, the Times noted.

When Bush "announced his voluntary greenhouse-gas intensity reduction goal in 2002, he said it would be reevaluated in light of scientific developments," David Conover, who directed the administration's Climate Change Technology Program until a year ago and is now counsel to the National Commission on Energy Policy, told the Times.

"The science now clearly calls for a mandatory program that establishes a price for greenhouse-gas emissions," Conover said.

But Hellmer defended Bush's policies, saying he was committed to actions such as moderating gasoline use and researching alternative energy that limited climate risks while increasing the country's energy and national security, the Times said. Hellmer added that Bush was satisfied with voluntary measures to slow emissions.

The report, the fourth in a series produced by countries signing onto the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, also bears fresh projections of significant effects of human-caused warming on the environment and U.S. resources and emphasized the need to ramp up the ability to adapt to forthcoming changes, the Times said.

The report said that drought, in particular, would be exacerbated due to an increasing evaporation rate, with Northwest and Southwest water supplies at risk.