Global Climate Coalition Disbands

ByWilliam H. Miller The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a Washington-based group that once was the dominant voice of U.S. industry on the climate-change issue but has lost clout in recent years, announced late last week its "deactivization." Formed in 1989, the organization questioned the extent of a global-warming problem and opposed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol setting mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. But in recent years many major companies resigned, shifting their memberships to softer-line organizations such as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. GCC became a coalition of trade associations rather than companies. In announcing its demise, GCC said it had "served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming." It noted that the Bush Administration "soon will announce a climate policy that is expected to rely on new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions, a concept strongly supported by the GCC."