Mr. Bush Gets Warmer

But the president still resists mandatory limits on global carbon emissions.

PRESIDENT Bush's speech at the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change at the State Department yesterday was neatly summed up by German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel: "This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind. In substance, we are still far apart."

That Mr. Bush was even acknowledging that global warming is a real and pressing problem, let alone hosting a two-day conference on climate change with the 16 largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world, is a remarkable turn of events. After all, he's spent most of his presidency questioning the science underpinning the warnings about global warming and opposing efforts to do anything substantive about the problem. Mr. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates reductions in global carbon emissions, still sticks in the craw of Mr. Gabriel and other European ministers. Their self-righteousness is undercut by their own failure to meet the mandatory carbon-reduction standards set out by the treaty, which expires in 2012.

But Mr. Bush's great step was a small step for humanity because he did not budge from his insistence that whatever action the nations take be voluntary. "We will set a long-term goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "Each nation will design its own separate strategies for making progress toward achieving this long-term goal." Mr. Bush said he will meet with heads of government next summer to finalize the goal. Even with the "strong and transparent system for measuring our progress toward meeting the goal we set" that Mr. Bush called for, the voluntary approach is just not going to fly. The United States must lead, and the only way it can do so is by instituting its own binding carbon dioxide reduction program on U.S. industry.

Putting a price on carbon and letting the market sort out how to respond would not only reduce emissions, it would also bolster the president's push to get industry to develop the technologies to keep carbon emissions low without stunting economic growth. Until then, developing nations that were left out of the Kyoto accord, such as India and China, have no reason to take serious action themselves.