Shortly after he came into office, President Bush told U.S. senators: “I do not believe … that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide.” That was the central requirement in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. By December 2006, a total of 169 governments had ratified the agreement.
The United States and Australia refused to join the Convention. China and India signed the protocol but are not yet required to reduce carbon emissions. The Senate and the President not only objected to the exemption of such major population centers as China and India from compliance with the main Kyoto mandate, they also claimed that required emissions reductions for carbon dioxide would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy.
Over the past decade, however, scientists all over the world discovered increasingly more convincing evidence that global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions may indeed change the conditions for life on earth as we know it. Glaciers in Alaska, Greenland, the Alps, the Himalayas, and the Antarctic are retreating. Permafrost (permanently frozen soil) in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia is melting at an alarming rate. The Ocean currents that moderate temperatures worldwide and are preventing Europe from having a climate similar to Siberia, are slowing. Sea levels are rising, and hurricanes are becoming more numerous and more intense.
Perhaps under the impression of such ominous observations and rising domestic criticism, President Bush joined the other G-8 leaders at their recent conference in Germany and agreed to a plan calling for "substantial cuts,” albeit nonbinding, of greenhouse gas emissions. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the deal "an enormous step forward," Mr. Bush got in fact what he wanted: no government-enforced mandates on the air-polluting industries.
In pursuit of his policy of nonbinding environmental regulations, the President invited major industrialized and developing countries to a summit on climate change in September to consider a long-term global strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He apparently wants this U.S.-led conference to head off the Kyoto mandates that he believes would cripple the American economy.
The President’s assumptions, however, are increasingly rejected by economists and businessmen here and abroad. They show that, far from being economically harmful, laws enforcing air pollution reduction and promoting intensified production of renewable energy are already creating growing numbers of profitable new enterprises.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created by systematically
producing solar, wind, water, geothermal, and biomass energy. Ideally every roof surface struck by the sun can generate energy. Once fossil fuels become seriously scarce and their prices rise ever higher, even the biggest oil and coal producers will have to turn to renewable energy sources to make a living. By 2020, the European Union hopes to generate one fifth of its energy requirements from renewables.
Hydrogen’s potential as an environmentally clean fuel has been demonstrated by NASA when liquid hydrogen lifts the space shuttle into orbit and hydrogen batteries (called fuel cells) power the shuttle’s electrical systems.
Last not least, the most potent alternative to fossil fuel is readily available for those who are not afraid of it: nuclear energy produced by the fission of uranium. France already generates 77 percent of its electricity in nuclear power plants.
Some of the non-polluting alternatives do have their limitations: clouds hide the sun; calm days slow down wind turbines; drought reduces hydroelectric output. Except perhaps for the nuclear and hydrogen option, none of the renewables can supply all the needed power.
Where governments curtail the greenhouse gas emitting industries, a growing number of new technologies are vying to produce clean and renewable energy. It simply is not true that required emissions reductions for carbon dioxide would weaken America’s or any other country’s economy.