Climate scientists are criticizing the greenhouse gas emissions goals announced yesterday by President George W. Bush. The Administration wants to establish country-by-country emissions goals by late 2008 but did not call for mandatory cuts.
The statement was Bush's clearest call yet to reduce greenhouse gases. Bush has previously spoken in terms of slowing emissions growth instead of reducing the total level of the gases. To determine the goals, Bush has called for a set of international meetings before he leaves office next year. "We need to harness the power of technology to help nations meet their growing energy needs while protecting the environment and addressing the challenge of global climate change," Bush said, avoiding specifics. Bush aides said the announcement was made now because of recent progress in climate-related research that shows it's pressing to act.
In a press conference yesterday, White House environmental aide James Connaughton defended the voluntary approach to regulation. He noted that since January 2001, the U.S. economy grew about 10% while emissions went up 1.6%. In Europe, where industry is preparing for greenhouse regulation next year, the economy grew 8% while emissions went up 5%. But Peter Gleick, an environmental scientist and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, says the White House is "cherry-picking" the data to paint a more rosy picture. "It leaves the impression that the U.S.'s choice of climate policy does more to solve the problem than Europe's--but that's wrong," he says. Looking at all six greenhouse gases, and not just carbon dioxide, shows that the growth in European Union emissions between 2000 and 2004 exceeded U.S. growth in emissions by roughly 1%, he says. But any other period since 1990, he says, shows the United States with greater emissions. According to a Pacific Institute analysis from 1990 to 2004, "U.S. greenhouse gas emissions grew more than 15% while emissions from the 15 countries of the European Union (the EU-15) declined by around 1%."
Geochemist Daniel Schrag of Harvard University argues that mandatory carbon caps should have been applied years ago to force energy technology innovations. He doesn't think that it's necessary to have, as Bush proposed, a year and a half of discussion to define emissions goals. "We know what we need to do now," he says. Schrag supports one aspect of the president's approach: a decision to focus on the world's top emitters--roughly a dozen nations--as opposed to the 169 countries that have signed the Kyoto treaty since 1997, a number he sees as unwieldy.
American diplomats are now preparing to share their plan next week at the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, where climate change will top the agenda.
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