25 Years Later, Climate Change Becomes the New War?
For some reason the announcement yesterday that George Bush planned to give a speech making new US commitments to tackle climate change completely failed to register with me. So familiar have I become with grand political statements on climate change that instead of eagerly awaiting the news I instead forgot all about it until reading this morning’s newspaper headlines.
Having read various commentary on the speech I expected to hear environmental campaigners declaring “too little, too late” in response to a scheme that would promise to do better, but only in a manner which precluded any actual immediate change.
I was pretty much correct.
I could end this post here, but will offer just a few additional thoughts.
Firstly, there is always some cause for optimism. The Bush administration has now joined the rest of the world in accepting that climate change exists after refusing to accept the science for many years. Action aside, this is a significant step.
However the delaying tactics are still very much in evidence. After George Bush Senior promised to freeze emissions by the year 2000 in a 1992 treaty (at the de Janeiro Earth Summit) the target was subsequently missed by the Clinton Administration, who instead promised to cut emissions by 2010 under the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. One Administration and one generation later, Bush Junior decided not to ratify Kyoto Protocol but decides to commit the US to non binding 2025 goals. If all goes to plan, the US will achieve emissions reductions 25 years after initially planned having pondered various treaties for 16 years.
Jennifer Lance offers an interesting observation in this regard writing in the Red, Green & Blue blog today:
The US government likes to declare war on issues in which there are no clear enemies, while physically fighting undeclared wars against foreign people. President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer and recreational drugs. Will George W. Bush declare war on climate change?
……
Could this be Bush’s declaration of war on climate change? I hope not, as the United States has failed to previously win a war on cancer, poverty, or drugs, and these wars have gone on for decades. We don’t have decades to solve the problem of climate change; we must do it now.
In this regard “too little, too late” is no longer appropriate. Considering the endless pledges and lack of achievement, political action on climate change can no longer be judged on words alone. Tim Hurst, also writing in Red, Green & Blue describes the sort of action that would be necessary to make a tangible difference:
Bush would have to seize the opportunity with all the capacity, all of the willpower, and all of the resources that he can possibly muster as the leader of the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world and channel it towards solving the most pressing problem facing humanity today.
I can see the movie trailer in my mind already..
You know what everything is too little too late for AGW supporters.
Many bloggers also did not listen or do not speak politics.
In this case what we have is not a President who rejected the science and has now had an revelation, as some seem free to state like a fact, he is simply saying stop the frenzied free-for-all at the state levels, step back and look at this objectively at the federal level.
This is energy policy. The states, like California, were causing huge problems and over-stepping jurisdiction into the federal arena, he had to get them to back off.
Things like the Western Climate Initiative and other Cap and Trade Deals at the regional level will create a mess of regulation and confusion in a distressed economy. This is what he was addressing if you listen.
Then he restated his existing position “There must be an International Agreement including emerging economies”, the published stated position of Japan, Canada, USA and others.
If you need a translation, India and China have to reduce or no deal.
He also stated the USA needs nuclear power.
Plus as a bonus the Republican nominee is a GHG reduction supporter, so a little Republican green perception was needed.