Bush floats goal for emissions tied to warming
The new White House climate initiative comes as Bush appears, in the view of congressional Democrats and environmentalists, as increasingly irrelevant in the climate debate both on the domestic and international stage.
All three presidential candidates — Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain — favor a more aggressive program on climate change than does Bush, all supporting mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.
Senate Democratic leaders plan to begin debate in June on legislation that would cap greenhouse gases and allow polluters to ease some of the cost by buying emissions credits. This cap-and-trade approach is aimed at cutting the emissions by 70 percent by mid-century. The House also is moving toward considering a cap-and-trade proposal. And many industry lobbyists have become resigned to some type of cap-and-trade proposal moving forward, if not this year probably next, and are trying to find ways to limit the damage.
"The key is whether the president supports a mandatory cap on emissions," said Tony Kreindler, a climate specialist at the advocacy group Environmental Defense. "You never achieve any real reductions in pollution without legal limits. That's what we're going to be looking for."
Supreme Court orders
Meanwhile, many environmentalists maintain that the congressional debate may be overtaken by the courts — the same prospect the White House is fretting over.
The Environmental Protection Agency already is under orders from the Supreme Court to determine whether carbon dioxide is endangering public health or welfare. If so, the court said, the EPA must regulate CO2 emissions.
Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas, so named because its accumulation in the atmosphere can help trap heat from the sun, causing potentially dangerous warming of the planet.
At the same time, the Interior Department has been told by another court to decide whether the polar bear should be brought under the protection of the Endangered Species Act because of disappearing sea ice — a phenomenon blamed by scientists on global warming.
While senior Bush administration officials were traveling to Paris this week to join a discussion with other Group of 8 countries about what actions to take on global warming, many foreign negotiators involved in such talks are increasingly looking ahead, knowing that it's likely the next administration will take more decisive steps on U.S. climate policy.
The United States and other countries agreed at a meeting in December in Bali, Indonesia, to work to set firm targets for reducing greenhouse emissions by the end of 2009, as a follow-up to the Kyoto reduction targets that expire in 2012.
The United States never ratified the Kyoto treat and the Bush administration wants to avoid a new, Kyoto-like accord.
The European Union maintains that worldwide emissions must peak within 10 to 15 years from now. By 2050, global emissions must be reduced by 50 percent compared to 1990 levels, and rich countries need to cut these emissions by 60 to 80 percent, the alliance believes.
The U.N. climate panel estimates that if carbon emissions peak by 2015, global temperature would increase above pre-industrial levels by up to 4.3 degrees F.
Peaking globally by 2030 would lead to temperature increase of up to 5.7 degrees F, the panel said.
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