ENVIRONMENT Global warming

From American Progress report

Bush's Bake Sale

Dozens of world leaders are currently assembled at the United Nations to create a "road map" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions once the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Yesterday, President Bush skipped the meetings, but managed to show up in time for a dinner hosted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Even though a new poll finds that 90 percent of people worldwide believe action i

s necessary on climate change, Bush continues to undermine global progress on emission reductions. On Thursday, he will host a meeting of the world's major emitters of greenhouse gases where he will push them to accept his misguided framework of "voluntary" reductions. Embracing the rhetoric of global warming isn't enough. Scientists estimate that the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50-80 percent by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. "Today, the time for doubt has passed," Ban told the General Assembly. "Inaction now will prove the costliest action of all in the long term.


BUSH'S ALTERNATE, 'ASPIRATIONAL' UNIVERSE: Thursday's White House-sponsored meeting will include the 15 major emitters of greenhouse gases, in addition to the United Nations and the European Union. Most of these countries are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, with the exception of the United States and Australia, which remain the only major industrialized nations to stay out of the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Joseph Romm and Daniel J. Weiss note, Bush's meeting will end up starting "another process outside the United Nations and post-Kyoto talks -- a process consisting of multiple meetings that don't finish their work until the very end of his presidency." The Bush administration has made clear that it wants each country to adopt voluntary "aspirational" goals to reduce emissions. By convening this separate meeting, Bush is essentially undermining the mandatory caps on emissions that the United Nations is attempting to negotiate.

VOLUNTEERISM IS FOR BAKE SALES, NOT GLOBAL WARMING: Bush announced his idea for this major emitters meeting just five days before the G-8 summit in June. He said that he wanted the United States to be involved in post-Kyoto talks on greenhouse gas emissions, but that the focus should be on a "long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases." The Bush administration hailed the major emitters meeting as a "new" policy on climate change. Yet pushing for toothless, watered-down climate policies is nothing new for this administration. At the G-8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed that countries adopt a 50 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, "but had to settle for compromise language after President Bush made it clear the United States would not agree to it." Earlier this month, Bush also convinced leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation agree to a "long-term aspirational goal" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, instead of binding targets. Yesterday, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) told The Progress Report that Bush's focus on voluntary reductions is misguided and destructive. "We simply know that volunteerism is great for PTA bake sales, but they will not reorder the economic system of the world, and move to a clean energy technology," said Inslee.

HIDING BEHIND AMERICA'S SKIRTS: Bush's refusal to join the international community in battling climate change is more than just a nuisance. The United States is "responsible for roughly one-quarter of the world's carbon dioxide" and other greenhouse gases. While many nations have already agreed to adopt significant greenhouse gas reductions, U.S. action on the issue would make it more likely that countries such as China, India, and Brazil would do so as well. "The leadership role of the United States is absolutely essential," said former senator Timothy E. Wirth, who is now president of the United Nations Foundation. "Unless the United States decides that it wants to be a major and committed leadership player in this and make very specific commitments, much of the rest of the world is effectively going to hide behind the skirts of the United States and not do anything."
PUSHING FORWARD ON MANDATORY CAPS: Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wrote to Bush and urged him to support "mandatory national and international limits," as well as Congress's energy bill that is currently being held up by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and other conservatives. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates that the strongest provisions of the House and Senate legislation -- including increasing fuel economy to 35 mpg and establishing a 15 percent renewable electricity standard -- could cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20 percent by 2030, compared to business as usual. This bill would be an essential contribution to meeting long-term global warming pollution reduction goals. Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) are putting together a bill with a market-based approach that could reduce emissions by 70 percent by 2050. The bill, likely to be introduced in October, has "already garnered tentative support from members who have previously been opposed to measures mandating carbon limits." Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Todd Stern and Brookings Institution scholar William Antholis have also put together a plan for an E-8 summit that would "consist of four developed and four developing countries (or entities) focused on global ecological and resource problems." "While an E-8 would be small enough to facilitate productive dialogue," they write, "it would have such a formidable footprint that its actions would be consequential in their own right and could set the terms of the policy debate more broadly."