Bush plan angers allies, Democrats: Kyoto alternative unveiled
WASHINGTON, Feb 15: US President George W. Bush unveiled an alternative to the Kyoto climate change treaty he spurned last year, to the dismay of environmentalists who saw the plan as a gift to corporate America.
“The Bush administration is sticking to the polluting policies that the energy industry asked for rather than taking the sensible steps that can protect our health,” said Executive Director of the Sierra Club Carl Pope.
Bush, in one of his first actions upon taking office in January last year, yanked US support for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires wealthy nations to cut to 1990 levels the emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Bush sparked a worldwide uproar with his decision to abandon Kyoto because he said it was likely to cost millions of US jobs.
On Thursday, he insisted the new plan, which would slow emissions growth by reducing “greenhouse gas intensity” — the ratio of emissions to economic output — by a target of 18 percent over 10 years, does not shortchange economic growth.
“I will not commit our nation to an unsound international treaty that will throw millions of our citizens out of work. Yet, we recognize our international responsibilities,” he said in an address at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland.
“This is the common sense way to measure progress. Our nation must have economic growth. Growth is also what pays for investments in clean technologies, increased conservation and energy efficiency.”
“We must encourage growth that will provide a better life for citizens, while protecting the land, the water, and the air that sustain life,” he said.
Those are noble goals, said top House Democrat Dick Gephardt, but not goals that may be achieved through Bush’s alternative plan, which reveals the administration’s greater interest “in giving assistance to the corporate special interests, than in achieving genuine reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.”
Henry Waxman, a member of the US House of Representative’s caucus on climate change, went a step further, deriding the Bush plan as “doublespeak.”
“What he calls a reduction in ‘greenhouse gas intensity’ is in reality a large increase in actual greenhouse gas emissions. And his proposed voluntary system for tracking emissions will make Enron’s books look honest in comparison,” the California Democrat said.
Canada said the Bush plan was not an adequate solution to the global warming problem. “We do not agree that this is a better approach,” said Canadian Environment minister David Anderson.
Japan acknowledged Bush’s announcement but insisted on the establishment of a “common rule in the future in which all countries including the United States and developing countries participate” to address global warming.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard welcomed Bush’s plan as a positive alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, despite opposition to it by environmental groups.
Bush’s voluntary plan would lower US emissions from an estimated 183 metric tons per million dollars of gross domestic product in 2002 to 151 metric tons per million dollars of GDP in 2012, the White House said.
To induce businesses and consumers to go along with the plan, Bush’s initiative offers 4.6 billion dollars over five years in tax credits for renewable energy sources.
Mindful of his international audience, Bush — who says Kyoto unfairly exempted large developing nations like India and China — insisted this method would give such countries a “yardstick” for progress against pollution.
“Developing nations such as China and India already account for a majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. And it would be irresponsible to absolve them from shouldering some of the shared obligation,” said Bush.
He said he would seek to sell the plan during his trip to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing next week, even as Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president was leading top US officials in a charm offensive to court world leaders.
Environmentalists took aim at the plan even before Bush spoke, calling it “a Valentine’s Day gift to corporate polluters.”
“It’s been written, paid for and delivered by Exxon,” said Greenpeace spokesman on climate change Steve Sawyer.—AFP
