Bush's Omissions on Emissions ; U.S. Is Only Major Nation Unwilling to Even Talk About Pollution Controls
Posted on: Thursday, 29 December 2005, 09:00 CST
The global fight against man-made climate change goes on -- without, once again, the United States. The Bush administration's wrong-headed "stay the course" rejection of sound science and corrective action again separates this country from an international community effort that seeks smaller steps for change now than would be needed if action is delayed.
Not even this administration, which has made deception and double- talk a hallmark of what passes for an environmental policy, still tries to sell the evidence-denying argument that global warming isn't happening. But the White House still contends that voluntary reductions are the way to go, and that strict limits would impose damaging economic costs.
An EPA analysis this fall, though, found that emissions cuts could cost industry as little as a dollar a ton. A recent Business Week story, detailing efforts by industries that would rather take their own affordable steps now, found some corporations are seeing savings because new technologies use less energy.
That may be some evidence that voluntary reductions can work -- but not in the way the administration argues. The White House says that although it can't accept the Kyoto Accord mandate of a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, it prefers its own voluntary program for an 18 percent reduction in emissions intensity. Emissions intensity -- the amount of pollution per unit of production -- can go down while more production actually drives up pollution amounts.
Recently in Montreal, 150 nations agreed to discuss the next stage of pollution reductions after 2012. The United States, which took part in the Kyoto talks under the Clinton administration in 1997, saw the Senate refuse to ratify the treaty. This time the Bush administration wanted no part. Encouragingly, the other nations decided to forge ahead without the United States. They're betting the next administration will see the need for the world's largest producer of global-warming pollutants to see its responsibility.
Source: Buffalo News
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