Too Little, Too Late.
By Bryan Walsh
At the G-8 summit in the Japanese resort town of Toyako, President George W. Bush proudly presented a pledge by the group's eight member nations to cut global greenhouse-gas emissions at least 50% by 2050. For a President who came into office publicly doubting climate change and has repeatedly refused to set specific limits on carbon emissions, the G-8 statement was a personal step forward.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, this year's G-8 summit--which marked the first time that leaders of the world's 16 biggest carbon emitters have sat down to talk about climate change--will be remembered as a lost opportunity. First of all, the 2050 pledge doesn't specify a baseline year. European leaders want to bring emissions down to 50% of 1990 levels, but host nation Japan seemed to indicate that it would be happy to use present-day levels. The difference in actual reductions would be enormous. So what appears to be a firm numerical target is just more hot aspirations--not too different from the original U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aimed to stabilize carbon emissions at a level that would prevent "dangerous human interference" with the environment. That was signed in 1992--by another President Bush.
But the real loss in Toyako was the chance to fully enlist big developing nations like China and India in the fight against climate change. In the weeks leading up to the summit, these countries indicated that they would be amenable to broad, long-term emissions reductions--provided that rich nations agreed to their own short-term cuts. The U.S. (along with Canada and Australia) nixed the idea, and so the developing nations conspicuously did not agree to the G-8's 2050 target.
By next year's summit, the U.S. will have a new and more environmental President, and the ground is set for substantial negotiations. But we won't get back eight lost years of White House indifference and interference on climate. It's too late for Bush to reverse that now. We can only hope it's not too late for the rest of us.
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