Bush Offers Incentives to Reduce pollution As Alternative to Kyoto Treaty

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, February 15, 2002

Bush Offers Incentives to Reduce pollution As Alternative to Kyoto Treaty

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Offering an alternative to the Kyoto treaty he rejected last year, U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday proposed an array of tax incentives to encourage businesses, farmers and individuals to reduce pollution.

"We need to recognize that economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand," Bush said at the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

He said he was announcing "a new environmental approach that will clean our skies, bring greater health to our citizens and encourage environmentally responsible development in America and around the world."

Bush said his administration had set two priorities: "We must clean our air and we must address the issue of global climate change."

"We will cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent from current levels, we will cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 67 percent,and for the first time ever, we will cap emissions of mercury, cutting them by 69 percent," Bush said.

These cuts will be completed over two measured phases, with oneset of emission limits for 2010, and for the other for 2018, he added.

��Last year, Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 40 industrialized nations to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions -- the so-called greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming.

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Bush Defends His Opposition To Kyoto Treaty