Even White House predicts rise in greenhouse gases

The Bush administration's own research shows US greenhouse-gas emissions growing 11 percent between 2002 and 2012.

By Brad Knickerbocker

from the March 8, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 2

For years, the Bush administration has been under pressure from scientists, environmentalists, and other countries to acknowledge and do more about climate change believed to be the result of human-caused greenhouse gases.

Now, as reported by several news outlets in recent days, the administration's own research shows US greenhouse-gas emissions increasing at a steady pace – yet the White House plans to deal with them mainly through voluntary measures.

The United States Climate Action report, required under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is still in draft form, although it was due in 2005. It reveals that the administration's climate policy predicts greenhouse-gas emissions growing 11 percent between 2002 and 2012, just about the same as in the previous decade.

"As governor of Texas and as a candidate, the president supported mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions," David Conover, who until February 2006 ran the administration's Climate Change Technology Program, told The New York Times, which first broke the story.

"When he announced his voluntary greenhouse-gas intensity reduction goal in 2002, he said it would be re-evaluated in light of scientific developments," added Mr. Conover, now counsel to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a nonpartisan research group that supports limits on gases.

"The science now clearly calls for a mandatory program that establishes a price for greenhouse-gas emissions."

If US emissions increase by the projected amount, this could bring "a distinct reduction in spring snowpack in the northwestern United States," warns the report. As quoted by the Associated Press, the report also notes that warmer temperatures could "exacerbate present drought risks in the United States by increasing the rate of evaporation."

Michael MacCracken, chief scientist at the nonpartisan Climate Institute in Washington, told the wire service:

"We're on a path to exceeding levels of global warming that will cause catastrophic consequences, and we really need to be seriously reducing emissions, not just reducing the growth rate as the president is doing."

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page