Temperatures Rising In Climate Debate

WASHINGTON — Advocates and opponents of mandatory limits on greenhouse gases are preparing for a global warming debate that is heating up even faster than the globe itself.

The liberal advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists fired a shot across the bow of climate change skeptics Wednesday, issuing a report that accuses ExxonMobil Corp. of funding a multimillion-dollar campaign to create doubt about the scientific underpinnings of climate change theory.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming, just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the group's director of strategy and policy.

The report, "Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air," lists $16 million in contributions the world's largest corporation has made to organizations that question the validity of scientific findings about climate change.

Based largely on previously disclosed information, the 63-page report says ExxonMobil uses "seemingly independent front organizations" and its access to the Bush administration to shape government policy toward global warming.

The Associated Press reported that ExxonMobil called the report "yet another attempt to smear our name and confuse the discussion of the serious issue of carbon dioxide emissions and global climate change."

The rush to set the tone on global warming reflects an expectation that several factors will spark a sharper debate on the issue this year. They include:

— Democratic control of the Senate has replaced Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who calls climate change the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who calls it the "greatest challenge of our generation," as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

— The Supreme Court will rule this year on whether the Environmental Protection Agency can be required to control carbon dioxide several other greenhouse gases.

— The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue its fourth scientific assessment early next month.

— Even the Bush administration has scattered its own seeds for climate debate, proposing to list the polar bear as a threatened species because of global warming.

Boxer has announced that as soon as she formally becomes the chair of the Senate panel, she will hold lengthy hearings on climate change.

"What we need to do next is to focus our attention on how we can fight this serious threat," Boxer said during one of the committee's last meetings under Inhofe.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and climate policy at the pro-industry Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that during the past decade, Democrats in Congress have criticized Republican committee chairmen for holding hearings on climate change.

"They'd make these long statements, declaring that 'the time for talking is long past' and 'we should be marking up a climate change bill now,' " Ebell said.

"So what does Boxer do? Hold hearings," he added. "I don't think they'll do much."

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has been one of the largest recipients of ExxonMobil support, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists report, collecting more than $2 million between 1998 and 2005.

Ebell said the report was an effort "to throw a bunch of accusations up on the wall and hope some of them stick."

"Mostly, it's just rubbish," he said.

Rafe Pomerance, who has campaigned for government action on climate change since the 1970s, said the Democrats' control of Congress will make it easier to get climate change legislation passed.

But political changes have less to do with climate change than vice versa, he said.

Ice is melting faster in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean than even climate scientists had thought it would, Pomerance said.

"I don't think anybody could have guessed that this could be happening now," he added, "and I think that's having a big effect on policy."

In fact, John Topping, president of the environmental group Climate Institute, said an upcoming United Nations review of its landmark "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" report is being delayed because the rate at which the Greenland ice sheet appears to be melting surprised even the experts.

"I don't think anybody expected what we're seeing up there," he said.

On the web:

The Union of Concerned Scientists: www.ucsusa.org

Exxonmobil: www.exxonmobil.com