Edition: U.S. / Global

For Europe, Greenhouse-Gas Issue Is How Much to Cut

Published: December 4, 1997

High-pressure steam heat has always been the life-force of BASF A.G.'s giant chemical complex here, where one street is named Ammonia and another is named after a catastrophic explosion that killed scores of workers in the 1920's.

The old power plant still burns coal by the bargeload, pumping high-pressure steam to heat reactions for making plastics and fibers and spewing about four million tons of ''greenhouse'' gases into the atmosphere every year. Until recently, this complex burned so much coal that the company owned its own mines.

Yet as American and European negotiators battle in Kyoto, Japan, over a proposed treaty to reduce the output of greenhouse gases implicated in global warming, this complex marks a fairly typical example of how the two sides often seem to be on different planets.

While American industry has warned that mandatory reductions would lead to factory shutdowns and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, BASF executives say they are not worried.

Regardless of what is decided in Kyoto, BASF executives predict, this complex will emit 25 percent less carbon dioxide in the year 2000 than it did in 1990, well ahead of the ambitious goals advocated by the European Union. ''The goals are absolutely achievable,'' said Max Dietrich Kley, BASF's managing director in charge of financial affairs.

Europe already releases less than half the volume per person of greenhouse gases as the United States. And it is urging a 15 percent cut in the industrialized world's discharges from 1990 levels, compared to the Clinton Administration's call for ''stabilizing'' emissions at those rates.

Compared to American business groups, European industry has been more receptive to the costly cleanup. Manufacturing groups are pursuing their own ambitious clean-air commitments. The debate here is not about whether to make steep reductions in carbon dioxide output, but how steep those reductions should be.

By any measure, Europe will have a hard time meeting its own ambitious goals. Pollution from cars and trucks is soaring, as traffic volume increases far more rapidly than automobile efficiency. Manufacturing executives warn that even big improvements in efficiency will be diluted by growth in overall production. And European industry has been fighting various proposals for stiff new ''carbon'' taxes that are tied to the use of fossil fuels. Thus far they have not gone anywhere.

''We are very skeptical about the European goals,'' said Joachim Hein, head of environmental policy at the German Federation of Industry, which has pledged steep voluntary reductions. ''It's easy to put more burdens on industry, but the problem is much more multi-faceted than that. What we are saying is that industry will do its best.''

Critics note that Europe has benefited from a few one-time historical events. The reunification of Germany in 1990 led to a huge reduction in emissions, because the former East Germany's bankrupt and filthy factories and power plants were quickly demolished. Between 1990 and 1995, carbon dioxide output in eastern Germany plunged by nearly half, to 172 million tons from 305 million.

Britain got a similar boost when the Government abandoned protections for domestic coal producers, which sparked a rapid shift to cleaner natural gas.

Part of what makes Europe look ''greener,'' moreover, is nuclear power, considered an environmental villain in North America. Nuclear power supplies 75 percent of the electricity in France, 50 percent in Sweden and 30 percent in Germany, compared with 20 percent in the United States.

As Europe's economy picks up, some energy-conservation projections are already falling by the wayside. The Netherlands Federation of Industry, for example, committed itself to improve energy efficiency by 2 percent a year. But Dutch carbon dioxide emissions actually grew slightly last year, largely because of increased economic growth.

''What we have done so far is follow a 'no-regrets' policy,'' said Wiel Klerken, director of environmental issues at the Dutch trade association. ''In other words, these are measures that are good anyway, even if there was not a CO2 problem, because you save money. But when you come to 15 percent reductions, you come into the area of 'regrets policy,' and so we think the current goals are too ambitious.''

Nor have European countries entirely figured out how to distribute the burden of making changes. Under the European Union's so-called ''bubble'' concept, Germany agreed to assume a huge share of the total European burden -- a 25 percent cut in emissions by 2010. The bargain would allow poorer countries like Portugal and Ireland to increase emissions as much as 30 percent.

The problem is that even if each country met its obligations, which is far from assured, emissions of greenhouse gases across Europe would fall by only 10 percent, and national leaders would still need to search for more cuts.

By any measure, the efforts within Europe far outpace anything even contemplated in the United States. The German Federation of Industry, the umbrella association that covers manufacturers of everything from cars to steel to chemicals, recently released audited results showing a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions since 1990.