Bush's climate goals vague – but a start

His call for US emissions to stabilize by 2025 marks a policy change, but is still behind other nations.

from the April 18, 2008 edition

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Moreover, the economy has continued to pour carbon dioxide into the air from burning fossil fuels, adding to the atmosphere's storehouse of the greenhouse gas.

Thus, the administration's new focus on absolute emissions represents a significant change, analysts say.

The speech evoked an "it could have been worse" response from some.

"Thanks to conservative opposition, the president has stepped back from the most damaging proposals being considered," according to a statement by Myron Ebell, who oversees energy and global-warming policy for the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute in Washington. Still, he continues, "President Bush has moved the debate toward energy-rationing policies that will raise electricity and gasoline prices for consumers."

Others see this as a defensive move on the president's part. A growing number of evangelicals are embracing mandatory emissions controls. And presidential candidates of both major parties also back such moves, which are taking shape at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. "Events are racing past [the White House]," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D) of Oregon. "This is an attempt to kick the can down the road not just for the next president, but for the next three or four presidents."

Technology's role

Business interests found much to like in the president's call for developing and deploying new technologies that, among other things, would keep the country's enormous coal reserve in the energy mix, through capturing and storing the carbon dioxide these power plants emit.

President Bush has laid out a constructive and balanced set of principles, says John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "Manufacturers seek climate-change solutions that offer significant environmental benefits without undue risk to jobs and the economy. Technology should play a leading role in curbing greenhouse-gas emissions."

The speech came on the eve of the third in a series of Major Economies meetings called by the White House to help develop a new climate treaty to pick up after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first targets expire.

Mr. Bush noted that the European Union and Canada were also setting interim emissions objectives as they weigh post-Kyoto steps. But they aim for absolute cuts in emissions, rather than merely stabilizing them. Last year, the EU called on industrial countries to reduce emissions by 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. And Canada's leaders have set a goal of reducing emissions by 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020.

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