U.S. PLAN PROMOTES FARMING AS MEANS TO CUT GLOBAL WARMING.(MAIN)

Byline: ANDREW C. REVKIN New York Times

Preparing for renewed international negotiations on cutting levels of heat-trapping gases that may be warming the climate, the United States is proposing that countries get just as much credit for using forests and farmers' fields to sop up carbon dioxide, the chief warming gas, as they would for cutting emissions from smoke stacks and tail pipes.

Scientists have known for decades that trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and that some soils do as well. In theory, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere would allow countries to emit some heat-trapping, or greenhouse, gases without adding to the overall problem.

Clinton administration officials and some scientists said Tuesday night that incentives to plant trees and to farm in ways that lock away carbon is an essential part of any strategy to stabilize the climate. In addition, they said, bringing farmers and foresters into the battle is likely to be essential if the Senate, which has so far firmly opposed ratifying any international climate treaty, is to change its view.

But the position is being criticized by some private environmental groups that have focused on cutting the burning of coal and oil, which caused most of the buildup of carbon dioxide. They point to uncertainties about how long plants and soils could continue to absorb carbon and contend that reducing emissions is by far the safer course.

And the proposal is at odds with the stance of the European Union which, given its relative lack of open land for tree-planting, would be at a disadvantage should the approach be endorsed.

The State Department laid out the United States' approach in documents filed Tuesday night with a U.N. office that is overseeing talks aimed at carrying out the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at averting any dangerous climate warming. Thirty-eight other industrialized countries were scheduled to file their proposals Tuesday night as well.

The Kyoto agreement has been signed by the United States and more than 100 other countries, but has not yet been ratified. Many details remain to be ironed out, with two rounds of negotiations coming in September and again in November.

If the agreement is ratified, the United States will commit to cutting its emissions of carbon dioxide by 2010 to 7 percent below where they were in 1990. Given the growth in the economy and fuel use since 1990, administration officials say, the only way to come anywhere near that target is by adopting every possible strategy, including the agricultural approach.