Backward on Global Warming

Sunday, February 17,2002

Published on Saturday, February 16, 2002 in the New York Times

Backward on Global Warming

Editorial

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from President Bush's latest

global warming strategy, unveiled this week, is that he does not

regard warming as a problem. There seems no other way to interpret a

policy that would actually increase the gases responsible for

heating the earth's atmosphere. That the policy demands little from

the American people, while insulting allies who have agreed to take

tough steps to deal with the problem, only adds to one's sense of

dismay.

The White House described Mr. Bush's strategy as aggressive and

bold. The only thing bold about it are accounting tactics worthy of

Enron that are designed to make an increase in emissions look like a

decrease.

The plan is voluntary and consists mainly of tax credits and other

incentives to encourage Americans to limit emissions. There is

nothing wrong with voluntary measures or with the credits. Several

American companies have already reduced emissions on their own,

partly for environmental reasons and partly because the efficiencies

required to achieve reductions make economic sense.

But these piecemeal efforts have been undertaken largely in the

expectation that at some point the United States would join in a

collective attack on the buildup of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere, which mainstream scientists now agree could trigger

unwelcome changes in the earth's climate. Mr. Bush has refused to

join that effort, abandoning his campaign pledge to limit carbon

emissions and renouncing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol committing

industrialized nations to mandatory reductions of carbon and other

greenhouse gases.

Mr. Bush's long-awaited substitute for Kyoto is a disappointment.

The essence of his strategy is a concept that seems to have been

minted for the occasion, called "emissions intensity," under which

carbon dioxide pollution would be allowed to grow, but at a slower

rate than economic output. That sounds attractive, but it misses the

point. The buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, already

alarmingly high, is a cumulative process. Thus the name of the game

is to stop adding new emissions to the vast amounts already up

there, not simply to slow their growth.

Yet that is all Mr. Bush is proposing to do, meanwhile dressing up

his meager agenda with some squirrely math. He first posits an

increase in emissions that is higher and more rapid than the

forecasts of his own Energy Department. Then, from this

"business-as-usual" baseline, he promises reductions of 18 percent

in the next 10 years. By his own figures, however, actual emissions

— the ones that count — could rise by 14 percent, which
is exactly the rate at which they have been rising for the last 10
years.

Mr. Bush's speech also included proposals aimed at reducing three

other pollutants largely unrelated to global warming: mercury,
sulfur dioxide — the main cause of acid rain — and nitrogen oxides,
which contribute to urban smog. The president called for stronger, mandatory
caps on all three pollutants and for market-based mechanisms like emissions
trading to help companies meet those targets. Mr. Bush would substitute this
"cap and trade" approach for the complex system of regulations that now govern
clean air enforcement.

In principle, these are fine ideas. But before disposing of the

existing regulatory structure, Congress must be fully satisfied that

the president's proposals will in fact achieve the sizable

reductions he and his senior associates say they will. We cannot

abandon existing law for a promise. Meanwhile, Congress is obliged

to do something, and soon, to develop a credible national strategy

on global warming. On this score Mr. Bush has fallen well short of

the mark.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company