Bush's good idea on global warming

A world hungry for innovation should review a plan he adopted in Texas.

By Helena Cobban

from the October 3, 2007 edition

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Washington - Imagine this: The Republican governor of a large, trendsetting state works with leaders of his state legislature from both parties to enact groundbreaking legislation that requires private corporations and others operating in the state to meet stringent pro-green goals. Is this Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, 2007? It could be. But it could also be Gov. George W. Bush in Texas, 1999. The Renewable Portfolio Standards Act adopted by Texas that year required the state's energy retailers to produce 5,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

That legislation provided a strong incentive for Texas energy companies to invest in renewables and established firm penalties for those that failed to meet their mandate. By all accounts it jump-started the state's development of alternative energy, particularly wind farms. Nowadays, Texas leads the nation in wind-power generation. Technological innovation can help reconcile economic development and the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that exacerbate global warming – but such innovation is most likely when governments establish firm mandates, not when private companies practice "business as usual."

All of which makes it quite mystifying why, as US president, Mr. Bush has firmly opposed fixed mandates to cut GHGs.

Back in 2001, it was his opposition to international mandates and fear of harming economic growth that led him to keep the US outside the Kyoto Protocol. This international agreement requires its rich-country participants to reduce GHG emissions by 2012 to an average of 5.2 percent below their 1990 level. More recently, at the Sept. 28 meeting on climate change that he convened in Washington, Bush expressed continued opposition to international mandates, saying, "Each nation will design its own separate strategies" to reduce GHGs.

The next three years will be crucial for our planet's increasingly endangered climate. Kyoto is due to run out in 2012. Kyoto was never a full treaty in its own right, but a "protocol" subsidiary to a broader agreement called the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, of which the US has remained a part. It will be this body that, starting this December, will convene the complex international negotiations for a follow-on to replace Kyoto in 2012.

This time around, it is even more important that the United States participate in the negotiations in good faith, agreeing up front to be bound like any other nation. People and governments throughout the world have looked askance at America's record of negotiation in Kyoto, where the US held out for, and won, several significant concessions – and then walked away from the agreement that resulted. Of the significant world powers, today only two remain outside Kyoto: the US and Australia.

There are three reasons why the US needs to participate fully and sincerely this time round:

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