Big Three Warn Clinton On Climate Treaty

The Big Three U.S. automakers told President Clinton on Thursday that a global agreement that forces only industrialized countries to cut carbon emissions would damage the US economy and cost jobs.

The chief executives from Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. called on Clinton at the White House for about an hour to express their concerns about a global treaty that would bind developed countries to a specific level of reductions of greenhouse gases, which are said to cause global warming.

If it is a legally binding agreement that is binding only on the developed countries like the United States, we believe that would be bad for the United States and for the auto industry in terms of jobs and the economic vitality of this country, Ford Chairman Alex Trotman told reporters following the meeting.

In December, representatives from some 170 countries will head to Kyoto, Japan, to sign a protocol that would legally bind developed countries to a specific level of emissions reductions.

Negotiations on the treaty are still ongoing. Trotman said an agreement that forced only industrialized countries to curb carbon emissions would create incentives for industries to move investment and jobs to countries that were not bound to reduce emissions in order to lower costs.

We feel very strongly that all countries should be involved in this agreement if there is an agreement, Trotman said.

Clinton is hosting a conference on October6 that will bring together politicians, scientists and business leaders to discuss the global warming issue and policies to combat it.

Trotman said Clinton was int erested in the economicconsequences of the various alternatives and that the discussion also focused on automotive and industrial technology.

We had quite a discussion about the need for a massive national effort involving the federal government, the (Department of Energy), the national labs, the auto companies and other industrial sectors in a technology drive to improve the efficiency of burning fuels, Trotman said. He said the president was very interested in the suggestion.

The group, which included General Motors Chairman John Smith, Chrysler Chairman Robert Eaton and United Auto Workers President Stephen Yokich, also briefly discussed trade issues with the president including the widening trade gap with Japan, Trotman said.

We didnt discuss Japan trade except only for maybe a minute at the end of the meeting to say that we continue to be concerned about the strength of the dollar vis a vis the yen, the trade imbalance in automobiles between Japan and the United States and the implied loss of jobs in the United States because of that trend, Trotman said.

The president expressed some concern with those developments also the developments in recent months of the trade imbalance between the United States and Japan, he added.

The U.S. automakers have complained that the weak Japanese yen, which lowers the cost of Japanese cars, was hurting the U.S. auto industry which has been struggling to break into Japanese markets.

U.S. and Japanese trade negotiators are set to meet next week in San Francisco to review a 1995 auto trade agreement.