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| Business Words in the News
Friday 15 February 2002
Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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Climate Change - Bush's policy
Summary: President George Bush has set out his policy on global climate change. He has rejected the approach envisaged by the Kyoto treaty and says that reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be linked to economic growth. This report from Tim Franks:
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| | The News | |
| | | President Bush said he was happy to challenge the status quo. His approach, he said, would help protect the American economy and the global environment. Overall, America will be committed to cut what the President called greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over the next 10 years. By that he means a cut in the amount of pollution per unit of economic activity. It was the commonsense calculation, said the President.
(PRESIDENT BUSH) My approach recognises that economic growth is the solution, not the problem. The approach taken under the Kyoto Protocol would have required the United States to make deep and immediate cuts in our economy to meet an arbitrary target.
Those cuts, said Mr Bush, would have led to nearly 5 million Americans losing their jobs. Certainly, among America's senior politicians in both political parties there's been sustained opposition to the Kyoto accord. But even so Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman said that the President had missed a key chance today - his policies would do nothing to target specifically carbon dioxide emissions.
(SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN) They may seem to the President like a big step forward but I'm afraid that for the rest of mankind they're actually a big step backward. It's time for President Bush to wake up and smell the carbon.
President Bush in turn said that he's convinced developing nations, in particular, will applaud his approach. In many countries, though, the US is likely to meet a wall of scepticism.
Tim Franks, BBC, Washington
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| | The Words
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| | | status quo
the current situation. Here, the global approach to reducing pollution
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| | | commonsense
sensible
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| | | deep
here, large
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| | | arbitrary
decided upon for no particular reason
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| | | even so
despite this fact
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| | | key chance
important opportunity
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| | | a big step forward
great progress
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| | | wake up and smell the carbon
a joke based on the American expression “wake up and smell the coffee” - stop ignoring things and realise the true situation
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| | | applaud
here, completely agree with
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| | | a wall of scepticism
widespread doubt
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