Empty Promises on Warming
NYT editorial
White House aides had billed President Bush’s Rose Garden speech last week as a major turning point at which the president would unveil an ambitious set of proposals to address the problem of global warming — a late-breaking act of atonement, as it were, for seven years of doing nothing.
Sadly, Mr. Bush’s ideas amounted to the same old stuff, gussied up to look new. Instead of trying to make up for years of denial and neglect, his speech seemed cynically designed to prevent others from showing the leadership he refuses to provide — to derail Congress from imposing a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and the states from regulating emissions on their own.
Mr. Bush’s main proposal was to halt the growth of emissions in the United States, chiefly from power plants, by 2025. This means, of course, that after seven years of letting emissions grow, he would allow them to continue to grow for another 17 years — and would come nowhere near the swift reductions in emissions that scientists believe are necessary to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.
We’ve been here before with Mr. Bush. A few years ago he grandly offered to reduce “carbon intensity.” The idea then was that carbon emissions could rise so long as they rose more slowly than economic growth. The president has never quite grasped the idea that the only way to reverse the process and prevent serious damage is actually to reduce emissions.
(Continued here.)
White House aides had billed President Bush’s Rose Garden speech last week as a major turning point at which the president would unveil an ambitious set of proposals to address the problem of global warming — a late-breaking act of atonement, as it were, for seven years of doing nothing.
Sadly, Mr. Bush’s ideas amounted to the same old stuff, gussied up to look new. Instead of trying to make up for years of denial and neglect, his speech seemed cynically designed to prevent others from showing the leadership he refuses to provide — to derail Congress from imposing a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and the states from regulating emissions on their own.
Mr. Bush’s main proposal was to halt the growth of emissions in the United States, chiefly from power plants, by 2025. This means, of course, that after seven years of letting emissions grow, he would allow them to continue to grow for another 17 years — and would come nowhere near the swift reductions in emissions that scientists believe are necessary to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.
We’ve been here before with Mr. Bush. A few years ago he grandly offered to reduce “carbon intensity.” The idea then was that carbon emissions could rise so long as they rose more slowly than economic growth. The president has never quite grasped the idea that the only way to reverse the process and prevent serious damage is actually to reduce emissions.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home