Tepid on global warming
A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
2/17/2002
W HEN PRESIDENT BUSH last year rejected the Kyoto
Protocol of 1997 as a way to curb global warming, he
promised to come up with an alternative. The result was the
package of toothless proposals he unveiled Thursday, a
Valentine's Day gift to the polluting industries that want no
part of Kyoto's mandatory reductions in emissions.
The Kyoto accord calls on the major industrialized countries to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.7 percent below
their 1990 levels. While it is an ambitious goal,
environmentalists say that even that might not be adequate to
stop the warming process, which threatens to damage crops
and cause disastrous flooding of islands and other low-lying
areas.
The role of the United States in reducing emissions is critical
because it produces 25 percent of greenhouse gases with just 5
percent of the world's population. On a per capita basis, the
United States produces twice as much as Germany, which is
hardly an undeveloped country.
Under the Bush plan, utilities, automakers, and other
industries could avail themselves of tax credits but would face
no mandatory reductions in the largest single greenhouse gas,
carbon dioxide. The schedule of voluntary cutbacks the
president's plan envisions would simply continue an existing
trend in which greenhouse gases per unit of production have
declined.
Bush's failure to regulate carbon dioxide emissions contradicts
a 2000 campaign promise to do so; he reneged last year.
Regulation would inevitably force utilities to burn less coal, the
fuel that produces the most carbon dioxide, a course that both
the power companies and coal producers resist.
While the trend of greenhouse emissions trailing economic
growth is positive, it does not yield the absolute reductions in
the gases that could at least slow the process of atmospheric
warming. On the transportation front, recent data are
especially discouraging.
Last year, for the first time since the 1970s, there was a decline
in the overall average fuel efficiency of cars sold in the United
States. This marked a disheartening defeat for two long-term
policy goals: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to
become more self-reliant in energy.
The Bush plan addresses this by proposing tax credits for
purchasers of alternative-energy vehicles. For the long term,
the Bush administration wants to reduce oil consumption in
autos by tying its wagon to the star of hydrogen fuel cells, a
technology that is probably 20 to 30 years from practical use.
That technology is worth supporting with both public and
private investments. But in the meantime Congress should
pursue a carrot-and-stick approach that includes
alternative-energy vehicle tax credits and also punishes
automakers if they fail to make substantial improvements in
the combined average efficiency of all the passenger vehicles
they sell.
Both carrot and stick are called for because the consequences
of inaction are so serious. The more gasoline US cars burn, the
more emissions they spew out, causing not just global warming
but also smog and attendant respiratory ills. Increased oil
consumption also ties the hands of US policy makers in the
Middle East, the biggest source of oil imports.
Unfortunately, the House of Representatives has approved an
energy policy that is little better than the one cobbled together
by Enron, other utilities, and big oil for the Bush
administration. The House bill calls for only a negligible
decrease in vehicle fuel consumption.
That leaves the Senate. Senator John Kerry is backing
legislation to require a substantial gain in efficiency by cars,
pickup trucks, minivans, and SUVs. By 2013 these vehicles
would have to average 35 miles per gallon versus the 24 miles
per gallon that they average now. The National Academy of
Sciences said last year that significant gains are possible
without breakthroughs in fuel technology.
The Kerry bill also proposes attractive tax credits for buyers of
hybrid vehicles, which run on gasoline and electric power, and
vehicles that use alternative fuel systems, such as natural gas
or ''plug in'' battery electricity. The credits could be decisive in
raising such vehicles from niche status to common use.
For instance, the buyer of one of Honda's planned hybrid
Civics could pocket a tax credit close to the $1,500-to-$3,000
difference between a hybrid and an all-gasoline Civic. The
hybrid Civic, which is likely to cost about $20,000 when it goes
on the market next month, will get 48 miles per gallon on the
highway and in the city with an automatic transmission. The
equivalent regular Civic gets 38 miles per gallon on the
highway and 30 in the city.
Neither tax credits nor higher fuel efficiency standards would
be needed if the nation made a policy decision to raise gasoline
taxes to push consumers to higher efficiency. For the time
being, though, Kerry's combination of tax credits and sterner
requirements for automakers would help curb the squandering
of this resource and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Transportation is just part of the greenhouse gas equation. But
it is an especially important part because the outsized SUV has
become such an international symbol of US inaction on global
warming and because vehicles are replaced much more
frequently than power plants or central air-conditioning
systems. The Senate should provide the leadership on this
issue that the administration and the House have abdicated.
This story ran on page C6 of the Boston Globe on 2/17/2002.
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