The United States will devise an alternative to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming based on voluntary industry measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
The report quoted sources as saying the administration of President George W. Bush "is considering new approaches that would allow industries to voluntarily meet less onerous targets . . . They would be allowed to do so without having to severely cut back production or incur major costs."
The Kyoto pact, negotiated and adopted in the ancient Japanese capital, requires industrialized countries to impose binding limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.
The U.S. would be required to cut emissions by 7 percent under the protocol. Bush announced in March that the U.S. will ditch the pact because it exempts developing countries from compliance and would hurt the U.S. economy.