He says it, but does he mean it?
President George W. Bush finally crossed a rhetorical threshold last week when he finally acknowledged that the U.S. must play a role in reducing the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
But the president has trailed the parade on this issue so long now that his declaration that the U.S. “is taking the lead” in a global reduction effort raises justifiable skepticism.
This is a president who could not bring himself to even mention climate change in his annual State of the Union speech until this year.
On the eve of this week’s meeting in Germany of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, the president evidently felt he could no longer ignore the reality of climate change caused by human activity – or the U.S. role as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases.
For one thing, Germany, Britain and Japan, three of the nations in the G-8 group, have already proposed cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050. And the host of this week’s summit, Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been pressing the group to adopt the plan – which U.S. negotiators have already said the U.S. will reject.
Contributing to the pressure on Bush are moves in the Democratic-controlled Congress to limit carbon dioxide emissions and develop a system for trading carbon-reduction credits. And some states, notably a group of Western states including Washington, have already agreed to develop plans with specific targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
The president says he will call for a “long-term global goal” for cutting such emissions, apparently a goal with a 50-year horizon. He wants that goal set in a series of talks among the 15 nations that are the top producers of greenhouse gases. And he wants the target to be “aspirational” – that is, purely voluntary, and each country would be free to set its own national goals.
All of which suggests Bush is far from becoming a serious convert on the urgency of dealing with climate change. The United Nations process that produced the Kyoto protocol on global warming is set to move to a new round of negotiations later this year. Critics, including Merkel and other European leaders, suspect the president of trying to derail the U.N. initiative.
The Kyoto accord Bush rejected was flawed, particularly because it left out major polluters China and India. They have to be part of the solution. But a global framework for reducing emissions is imperative, and mandatory caps on emissions are essential.
The best way for the U.S. to show true leadership on global warming is to lead by example – by showing a genuine national commitment at home.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.