Warming's bad guys made good

The latest moves by China and Bush should be welcomed as new awareness of the need for joint action.

from the June 5, 2007 edition

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Leaders of the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, laid out plans in the past week to reduce their impact on the planet. But these two giants on the global scene also suggested two won'ts: They won't be bound to action by other nations and they won't hurt their own economies.

Even with those caveats, the fact that the Bush administration and China's top governing body, the State Council, acted just before the G-8 summit of industrial leaders this week is a healthy sign.

They now recognize their interests, and perhaps the welfare of all nations – especially poor ones – are at stake. They should be welcomed for joining the effort to save the global "commons" that is the atmosphere and oceans.

China's 62-page plan, issued Monday, notes how extreme weather, such as melting glaciers, will "have immense impact on socio-economic development." President Bush didn't go that far in his language last week, but he did call for the top 15 polluting nations to agree on long-term – and nonbinding – carbon-emission goals by the end of 2008.

Step by step – and sometimes backward step – each individual, village, city, and national government must take ownership of this challenge.

For Europe, agreeing to Kyoto's 2012 targets was the easy part, but the Continent has fumbled in managing the treaty's cap-and-trade system. Either by ineptitude or corruption, the caps on pollution were made too loose while the trading of pollution credits has resulted in many dubious projects for mitigating emissions.

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