No G(r)8 Accomplishment

President Bush's agreement to a declaration on climate change comes seven years late.

THE GROUP of Eight declaration of its commitment to a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050 could be viewed as a ho-hum event when you consider that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought the same commitment at last year's summit and that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has called for a cut of up to 80 percent in the same period. What made the announcement Tuesday at once monumental and pathetic was that it was agreed to by President Bush. With just over six months left in office, and after seven years of denial, inaction and foot-dragging, Mr. Bush finally did what the world has been pleading with him to do.

The G-8 document is big on vision. Technology is the centerpiece of many of the initiatives to help developed and developing countries adapt their economies. In addition to the emissions reduction goal, there are calls for mandatory "mid-term goals and national plans to achieve them" and recognition of "the importance of setting mid-term, aspirational goals for energy efficiency." But the G-8 declaration contains no specifics. For instance, is that a 50 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels or 2005 levels? The answer matters.

The price of Mr. Bush's obstinacy has been high. The cost to meet the frightening demands of climate change is greater now than it would have been when Mr. Bush took office in 2001. And the United States has earned the enmity of other countries for not giving credence to the avalanche of evidence that global climate change is a real menace. Other nations awaited the leadership that only Washington could provide -- especially since the United States was until recently the word's largest emitter of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. And they waited in vain.

Certainly, over the last year or so, Mr. Bush has taken positive steps on climate change. The series of Major Economies meetings involving the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters could be viewed as a distraction from the negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol under the auspices of the United Nations. But those meetings brought India and China, the latter now believed to be the top emitting nation, into the process. The Major Economies issued their own declaration at the G-8 summit, pledging to support U.N. efforts to conclude a new climate agreement. The fight against global warming will be lost without them.

Mr. Bush's late action has, at least, committed his successor to a major emissions reduction goal. Thankfully, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have promised to do even more. It will fall to one of them to design and implement the policies that can bring about that change -- just as Mr. Bush's legacy will be marked by his failure to do so.