Bush’s Global Warming Plan Isn’t Good Enough

After hearing the news from the White House that President Bush was set to unveil his new strategy for combating global warming, I wondered if he had finally returned to where he began? Was he finally going to make good on his broken promise from the 2000 campaign to support the Kyoto Protocol, and lead the international effort to solve global warming?

Well, it’s now clear the answer is no. Not only is the President’s “plan

If the President wants to act on climate change, the first thing he should do is to setting a cap on global warming pollution and supporting a national renewable energy standard. The President doesn’t have to start a new process to agree to targets with major emitters, he could simply agree to the targets proposed for the G8 meeting next week. If he does not do that, the other seven G8 members need to move forward without President Bush.

The President talked about the need to engage the rapidly developing countries of China and India. However, the President forgot to mention the fact that both China and India have already ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. has not. We are the single largest emitter of global warming pollution on the planet. The average citizen of the U.S. uses more than 6 times the amount of energy as the average Chinese citizen.

If the President were serious about battling global warming he would have set a goal. The Europeans have set a goal based in solid science, keeping average global temperature change under 3.7 F degrees. Scientists tell us that our planet will likely face profound changes with a temperature change of more than 3.7 degrees. A 50% cut in global emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels is what science demands and will require industrialized countries to cut their emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and 80-90 percent by 2050.

The President, on the other hand, offered no targets or timelines. He proposed a meeting that would attempt to set “aspirational goals