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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (164267)	7/25/2001 7:04:53 AM
From: ColtonGang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Wrong Bush decision...........Phila Inquirer Editorial U.S. misses an opportunity to lead on reducing greenhouse emissions. The globe may be warming up. But the United States is out in the cold. While America stood silently by, 178 other nations achieved a compromise in Bonn, Germany, this week to revive a withering global warming action plan. If adopted internationally, it could help reduce rising heat-trapping gases, also known as greenhouse emissions, that are dangerously warming the atmosphere. Like the United States, many other nations, most notably Japan, saw problems with the plan. Unlike the United States, those countries showed wisdom in remaining part of the protocol so they could continue trying to influence its details. The Bush administration found itself not only isolated but ostracized. The President's earlier protests that the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was "fatally flawed" were simply ignored. The United States lost still more influence because, even though the administration had said it was developing alternative solutions to reduce greenhouse emissions, U.S. delegate Paula Dobriansky showed up in Germany empty-handed. She got more than a chilly reception. She got booed. No doubt some of the usual "let's gang up on America" attitude was in play. No doubt the compromise needs further adjusting - and not only because resistance from the United States, the world's largest polluter, would limit its scope. One issue worth further discussion is the emissions-cutback breaks for countries with large, carbon-dioxide absorbing forests, especially Japan. Those breaks would probably reduce original Protocol goals for cutting emissions by 5.2 percent from their 1990 levels by the year 2012. The need to have realistic emission-reduction goals must be balanced with genuine environmental protections. The Bonn compromise also endorses pollution trades that need to be carefully considered: Countries doing better than required on emissions would be able to sell the right to pollute to other nations. So, yes, the pact is far from perfect.But the American approach of doing nothing is itself fatally flawed. The stakes are too high. If even the milder predictions of damage are right, then global warming's impact on the U.S. economy and the world will outweigh any economic setbacks that a modest emissions-cutback protocol might cause. For that matter, the United States will feel the protocol's impact whether it participates or not. U.S. companies with overseas operations will have to play by protocol emissions rules if the country that hosts their satellites are participating. The Bush administration has time to reassert itself at the October global warming conference in Morocco. Or it can continue to ponder an international problem all on its own - and miss the chance to be a world leader in protecting the environment.