By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
The Sierra Club Hawai‘i Chapter has called on the governor and Legislature to support the reduction in "greenhouse" gas production.
The environmental group cites the state’s Environmental Council, which called for similar reductions in its recently released 2000 annual report.
Both the Environmental Council and the Sierra Club support restrictions agreed to in the 1998 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Sierra Club director Jeff Mikulina said Hawai‘i’s production of gases that tend to increase atmospheric heat levels is going in the wrong direction — increasing dramatically instead of being rolled back.
"It’s time to act. No more studies, no more excuses. Hawai‘i’s existence is in jeopardy, and the loud message we are sending the world and our Polynesian neighbors is ‘we don’t give a damn,’" Mikulina said.
The Environmental Council report notes that sea level records at major Island harbors show water levels have risen 6 to 14 inches in the past 100 years.
The Sierra Club cited the January 2001 report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, estimating sea levels over the next century could rise another 4 to 35 inches.
"The expected rise in sea level could cause flooding of low-lying property, loss of coastal wetlands, beach erosion, saltwater contamination of drinking water and damage to coastal roads and bridges," the council report said.
Other reports have suggested catastrophic results for atolls and low-lying islands elsewhere in the Pacific. Some islands already are experiencing severe coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion into drinking water supplies.
The Environmental Council, a 15-member public panel advising state officials on environmental issues, recommended that Hawai‘i adopt the U.S. commitment to reduce emissions to a level 7 percent below where they were in 1990, and that this goal be met by the period 2008 to 2010. The council noted that Congress did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but said it is an interim standard that Hawai‘i should adopt.
Mikulina said that unless changes are made in the Islands, the existing trend will have emissions 29 percent higher than the Kyoto target by 2010.
He said there are proposals before the Legislature to reduce emissions from Hawai‘i electric utilities, whose emissions are equivalent to the combined Hawai‘i emissions from air, marine and ground transportation.
"Hawai‘i is one of the few places where a multitude of renewable energy choices are available, and we may be hit hardest with climate change.
"If we don’t act now to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, how can we expect anyone else to take it seriously?" Mikulina said.
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