29 September 2004
One wonders what it will take to bestir the Bush administration on the subject of global warming. Everywhere one looks nowadays - London, Moscow, even the odd precinct on Capitol Hill - there is evidence of mounting impatience with Washington's refusal to face up to the threat. While the links between global warming and Florida's serial hurricanes are largely theoretical, even the weather seems to be telling the politicians that it is time to start paying attention.
Certainly Tony Blair thinks so. In a forceful recent speech before business leaders in London, Mr. Blair, in many other respects a Bush loyalist, called global warming "the world's greatest environmental challenge," implicitly rebuking the administration for its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Mr. Blair said he would put the issue near the top of the agenda at next year's G-8 meeting of industrialized nations, over which Britain will preside.
In Moscow, a hitherto skeptical Russian government has set in motion legislative action that could lead to Russia's approval of the Kyoto agreement. That would bring the treaty into force and enlist Moscow in a global effort to reduce greenhouse gases. It would also isolate the United States from the various mechanisms, including an emissions trading system, envisioned by Kyoto.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, John McCain - last seen rhetorically embracing President Bush at the Republican convention - reminded the White House that he remains, at least on this issue, an implacable critic. In hearings last week, Mr. McCain called the administration's generally passive approach "disgraceful" and warned that future generations would pay a heavy price for continued inaction now.
Mr. McCain, a co-sponsor with Senator Joseph Lieberman of a bill to impose mandatory caps on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide , the main global warming gas, also ventured where few politicians have dared to go, drawing a link between this calamitous hurricane season and climate change. This is not farfetched: because hurricanes draw their intensity from the heat in ocean waters, and because the oceans (like the rest of the world) are gradually getting warmer, a growing number of reputable scientists say hurricanes are likely to grow in intensity and destructive power, if not frequency.
Of all the signs of impatience, the most important came from California, where state regulators last week approved the first rule in the United States limiting automobile emissions of carbon dioxide. The rule seeks a reduction in these gases of about 30 percent by 2016. It could have enormous ramifications for industry and consumers because California is the country's biggest automobile market and because New York and six other Northeastern states have indicated a willingness to follow suit.
Because most of an automobile's carbon dioxide emissions come from burning fuel, the California rule will require automakers to increase sharply the fuel efficiency of millions of vehicles. As technological challenges go, this is a big one, but history suggests that the industry can meet it.
A 30 percent reduction in emissions in roughly a decade is less daunting than the 50 percent reduction required by the fuel economy standards imposed by Congress nearly 30 years ago - the last time the automakers were forced to pay serious attention to efficiency. And much of the technology needed to meet the target is either already on the road - in the form of gas-electric hybrid cars - or on the shelf.
In a sense, of course, Mr. Blair, the Russians, Mr. McCain, California and maybe even the hurricanes are sending the same message: that Mr. Bush is bringing up the rear of a parade he really ought to be leading. It would help, too, if Senator John Kerry, whose record on this issue has been strong, sent the same message in a more public and compelling venue than his campaign Web site.
