The world wakes today to exciting news: US President George W. Bush has set a new national climate target. While others seek to reduce emissions, the US will now look to at least stop increasing them. By 2025.
As the clock winds down on the Bush era, it is worth considering the consequences of his decision to stand still on climate change. America is now at least eight years behind the rest of the world. It will take a long time and a lot of work to catch up and there is, as yet, little evidence to suggest that the next president can do enough.
Bush's bad example has granted others leeway to avoid action. It is a sign of an emerging dynamic within global negotiations that Japanwas one of the first to praise this ‘positive' move. Canada, whose new climate plan was derided by Al Gore as ‘a complete and total fraud', now also stands with the US. Developing countries like China and India continue to resist efforts to be brought into the fold, sighting inaction and lack of leadership from the developed world. Still, there is an expectation that America will lead on climate change. Yvo De Boer, who leads the UNFCCC, the organisation charged with spearheading ongoing international negotiations, recently suggested the world could wait for the US. New global targets, he said, could be ‘more sensibly discussed with a new administration'.
Unfortunately climate change has scarcely been mentioned on the campaign trail. The Iraq war and an incoming economic recession dominate debate. At the same time positive moves at the state and city level have faced serious political opposition. Last week a proposal to introduce a London-style congestion charge in New York was easily defeated, in Maryland political squabbling threatens to undermine the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and at the congressional level, any number of plans have been drafted and disregarded. The latest, spearheaded by Senators Joe Liebermann and John Warner, is expected to go the same way.
Still some positives can be taken from two terrible terms. A grassroots movement, led by the man initially charged with stopping Bush, has emerged and societal attitudes in America now run ahead of political action. Internationally, though these have been disastrous times, they have also been formative. The Kyoto Protocol itself is flawed, but countries have rallied round the UN standard in the face of Bush's belligerence. As his administration's long years come to an end, one can only hope that whatever follows can't be as bad.