Bush’s Answer to Kyoto

Months after refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (see January 2002, page 26 ), the Bush administration has proposed an alternative: a voluntary 18% cut over the next 10 years in “greenhouse gas intensity” (based on the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions to the size of the US economy) instead of reducing overall US CO₂ emissions by 7% through national and international regulations.

Both the Canadian and Australian governments have welcomed the Bush proposal, but elsewhere it has been roundly condemned. “The Kyoto Protocol, with its legally binding targets and timetables, remains the only workable basis for taking forward international action on climate change,” says Margaret Beckett, the UK’s environment secretary.

Critics, such as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia, claim that the Bush proposal is just a business-as-usual scenario that will result in a 30% increase in CO₂ emissions from 1990 to 2012. Since 1990, the US emission intensity has dropped by 1.7% per year but CO₂ emissions increased by 12%.

If the US does not reach the proposed 18% cut in emission intensity, Bush promises that “additional measures,” will be introduced in 2012.

Meanwhile, the European Union and its allies appear certain to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, bringing it into international law by their self-imposed September 2002 deadline.