GEORGE W. BUSH appears increasingly isolated this week following his
unilateral rejection of the Kyoto Protocol to stem global warming. Even
Americans who criticised the 1997 treaty are saying he’s failed to think through
the consequences.
“Bush doesn’t seem to have an alternative plan, and that is deeply
problematic,” says David Victor of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York
think tank, who was a prominent critic of Kyoto.
Meanwhile, environment groups are considering telling their members to
boycott American oil companies that do not set their own targets for reducing
greenhouse-gas emissions. “The way to stand up to this is for companies as well
as countries to make commitments to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases,”
says Claude Martin, director-general of the World Wide Fund for Nature
International.
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The furore began last week when Bush announced that he doesn’t support the
Kyoto treaty. “It is not in the United States’ economic best interest,” he says.
Bush says the US has to give priority to solving its energy crisis, which has
triggered blackouts in California. And he promised a new climate policy, when it
had been developed.
Bush’s decision to turn his back on the Kyoto agreement has been attacked by
leaders in Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia and by environment ministers from
North and South America. “There is no serious possibility of negotiating an
acceptable alternative,” says Britain’s environment minister Michael
Meacher.
Efforts are now under way to save the agreement. European Union environment
ministers meeting in Kiruna, Sweden, last weekend say they still intend to
finalise the agreement in July, with or without the US.
But the mathematics are difficult. To come into force, the Kyoto Protocol has
to be ratified by industrialised countries responsible for 55 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in 1990
(see Chart). The EU plus Russia and Japan could bring
it into force. Conversely, the US could block it with the support of Russia or
the negotiating block that includes Japan, Canada and Australia.
This week, Japan and Russia attacked Bush’s stance, while Canada equivocated.
Australia’s environment minister Robert Hill says: “The Kyoto Protocol won’t
work without the US.” Frank Loy, who was chief climate negotiator under
President Bill Clinton, calls Bush’s move “a total, unmitigated disaster”. But
even Clinton failed to rein in emissions. “Nearly half of the total increase in
global CO2 emissions since 1990 has come from the US—exceeding
the combined emissions growth of China, India, Africa and Latin America,” says
Chris Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC.
Victor accuses the Bush administration of making policy on the hoof. “They
don’t even have the full complement of people in place at the State Department
to make decisions on global warming,” he says. He thinks Bush will be forced to
backtrack, and introduce domestic emissions controls before the 2004 election,
as opposition to his environmental isolationism grows.
Flavin says the Kyoto Protocol is the best way to encourage companies to
develop new technologies, and that Bush is making “a costly economic mistake” by
not joining it. “Those countries that address climate change earliest will
dominate the massive new energy technology markets of the new century—and
create millions of jobs in the process,” says Flavin.
Even in California, scene of the recent blackouts, they may have glimpsed
that future. Sales of solar panels have rocketed as households try to obtain
power independently of the grid. “This is going to be the year of solar,” says
state energy official Sanford Miller. “By the end of the year there’s going to
be a lot of houses with solar in them.”