Mr. Bush Warms Up
The president joins the climate-change debate -- finally.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

SHOULD WE be grateful that President Bush has acknowledged the impact of greenhouse gases on the Earth's climate and environment? After six years of questioning the science behind the warnings about global warming and vigorously resisting efforts to do anything about the problem, he claimed Thursday that the United States is ready to take the lead on global climate policy. Mr. Bush wants to convene a series of meetings with the Greenhouse Gas 15, the largest emitters in the world, to "set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases" that would be effective after 2012. That's when the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates global emissions reductions and which the United States never ratified,

expires.

There are ample grounds for cynicism in considering this gambit. First, an international forum already exists. The administration says that the Bush-proposed talks are meant to complement the United Nations framework that drove Kyoto and that the administration's plan will drive second-phase talks in Bali later this year. But will a second forum serve as a spur or a distraction? Second, the president wants the Greenhouse Gas 15 to come up with something by the end of 2008. That's both suspiciously quick -- it took years for Kyoto to go into effect -- and suspiciously late, given that Mr. Bush will leave office a few weeks after.

And then there's the absence of binding commitments in Mr. Bush's vision; he's thinking about "aspirational goals," as described by White House environmental adviser Jim Connaughton. Mr. Bush is right to bring into the discussion China and India, two economic powerhouses that thus far have shown no more inclination than the United States to accept binding international limits on greenhouse gas emissions. He's right, too, that new technologies have to be part of the mix of ameliorations for global climate change. But he can't expect his voluntary, national approach to be taken seriously unless America leads by example -- which means Mr. Bush would put before Congress a carbon-tax or cap-and-trade proposal to address climate change. Without that, it's just talk.

If there's a silver lining in the president's actions, it's that talk sometimes can take on a life of its own. The president has joined a dialogue that he had studiously avoided and has placed a marker that must be dealt with. The upshot, early in the next presidency, if not during his, could be an emissions reduction program that finally pulls the United States, China and India off the sidelines.