Conscious Choice: As the World Warms...

August 2002 | News of the Earth

As the World Warms...

by Dave Aftandilian

Last year President Bush provoked outrage around the world by pulling the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol. The purpose of the protocol was to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs, such as carbon dioxide and methane) that lead to global warming, despite the fact the United States is the world’s largest emitter of GHGs, producing about 20 percent of the total emitted. The protocol would have required the United States to reduce its emissions of GHGs to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 — the equivalent of a 30 percent reduction over predicted emissions by that date. Asserting that these emissions limits would adversely affect the U.S. economy, Bush opted instead for a largely voluntary approach to coping with global warming, which he announced in February 2002.

Under the Bush plan, the United States would reduce its GHG "intensity" (gas emitted per unit of GDP) 18 percent by 2012. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman put it, "Since most forecasts call for the GDP to expand 30 percent or more over the same period, this is actually a proposal to allow a substantial increase in emissions.... In fact, the administration’s target for reduction in greenhouse gas intensity might well be achieved without any policy actions [as the U.S. converts more and more to a postindustrial economy] — which is good news, because the administration hasn’t really proposed any."

Since then, scientific evidence of global warming has continued to mount. In March of this year, a Rhode Island-sized chunk of ice broke off along a fast-warming edge of Antarctica, and disintegrated within a month. (According to glaciologists, that part of Antarctica has been icebound for at least the last 12,000 years, making this rapid breakup especially disturbing.) Coral reefs around the world are showing bleaching and other signs of adverse effects from warming oceans. A report in the scientific journal Nature published earlier this year found a "coherent pattern of ecological changes" due to climate change in nearly all the world’s major habitat zones, ranging from the polar regions to the Tropics and including the temperate areas in between.

In the United States, these changes have been most keenly felt in Alaska — so keenly, in fact, that even Alaska’s arch anti-environmental senator, Republican Ted Stevens, has been forced to acknowledge that "Alaska is harder hit by climate change than any place in the world." From Fairbanks northward, melting permafrost has caused houses to slouch and buckle on their foundations. On the Kenai Peninsula, higher temperatures led to a boom in the population of spruce bark beetles, which proceeded to destroy a four million-acre spruce forest there. Retreating sea ice has led to more intense storm waves battering Alaska’s coast and undermining villages such as Kivalina, Shishmaref, Point Hope, and Barrow, all of which may need to undergo costly relocations to sites farther from the shore. And many sea creatures that Inuit and other peoples depend upon for subsistence, such as walrus, whales, polar bears, and caribou, are all being hard hit by the warmer temperatures.

Has any of this changed the Bush administration’s approach to global warming? Yes and no. In June the EPA submitted its Climate Action Report 2002 to the United Nations (the report is available online at www.epa.gov/ globalwarming/publications/car/index.html). Drawing heavily on a recent National Research Council publication, the EPA report stated that "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing global mean surface air temperature and subsurface ocean temperature to rise." This admission represented a dramatic about-face for an administration that had previously followed the lead of its oil industry buddies and argued that we still weren’t sure if we were warming the Earth.

But the report still insists that Bush’s voluntary, essentially do-nothing approach was the wisest course, and that instead of trying to stop global warming, we should prepare to adapt to its inevitable results, which would probably include "the disappearance or fragmentation of natural ecosystems...likely to be costly or impossible to replace," including alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains, certain barrier islands, and Southeastern forests. Even conservatives think releasing a report like this is a bit disingenuous. Here’s what Christopher Horner, an attorney for the industry-affiliated Competitive Enterprise Institute, had to say: "With this report, [Bush] says,‘I acknowledge what [global warming] alarmists say is true, but I refuse to do what the alarmists say is necessary. It’s not morally tenable to either the right or the left to say,‘Gee, we’re killing the planet, but we’re not going to do anything.’"

States Act While Bush Treads Water

Luckily, many states and even businesses aren’t waiting for the Bush administration to show them the way, but are instead acting on their own to cope with global warming. A recent report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, "Climate Change Activities in the United States," details some of the most innovative programs these groups have initiated (the report is available online).

As one of the largest states, and one of the most environmentally conscious, California often leads the nation on environmental issues, and global warming is no exception. A measure that passed the California legislature last month would make this the first state to regulate emissions of GHGs from cars and light trucks (including SUVs), if signed by Governor Gray Davis. According to the EPA, the transportation sector is responsible for about a third of U.S. GHG emissions, so reducing these emissions would go a long way toward dealing with global warming. The bill directs the state’s Air Resources Board (appointed by the governor) to develop a plan by 2005 that would provide the "maximum feasible reduction" in GHGs from auto tailpipes; the plan would not take effect until auto model year 2009. The most obvious way to reduce these emissions is to improve the fuel efficiency of vehicles — something Congress has repeatedly refused to do. But California’s law, if passed, may force the auto industry to do just that.

At their annual conference last August, governors of the New England states and premiers of Eastern Canadian provinces approved a comprehensive climate change action plan to jointly reduce regional GHG emissions. The plan aims to reduce these emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and eventually to levels low enough that they do not pose a significant threat to the climate. Building on successful regional efforts to identify and reduce emissions that lead to acid rain and mercury pollution, the plan calls for a regional standardized GHG emissions inventory and registry, and possibly a carbon trading mechanism, as well as measures to adapt regional economies and infrastructure to potential negative effects resulting from climate change.

At least twenty-seven states have developed or are developing strategies or action plans to reduce GHG emissions. New Jersey, for instance, has committed to reducing GHG emissions to 3.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2005, partly through voluntary actions and partly through state initiatives. This past May, New Hampshire passed the first law in the nation to regulate power plant emissions of carbon dioxide through a multipollutant plan (something Bush had promised to do as a presidential candidate, but reneged on after entering office), requiring that these emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2010 (according to the 2002 EPA report cited above, power plants are responsible for about 40 percent of U.S. GHG emissions). A 1997 Oregon law requires new power plants to counter their global warming impact by offsetting about 17 percent of their GHG emissions; one way for utilities to meet this standard is to pay a fee to the nonprofit Climate Trust, which invests the money in projects to reduce or sequester (e.g., store in forests or on agricultural lands through planting new trees or crops) carbon dioxide emissions.

Thirty-eight states have completed GHG inventories, and two have them in progress. A number of states are promoting farm practices that can reduce GHG emissions or sequester carbon dioxide in the soil. Iowa, for instance, provides support, funding, and information to promote switchgrass as a biomass, renewable energy crop with the potential to be grown widely across the state. The Oregon Forest Resource Trust pays up to 100 percent of reforestation costs to help landowners plant and maintain healthy forests on underproducing lands. And Georgia’s No-Tillage Assistance Program leases no-till equipment to farmers; no-till methods allow crops to be planted with very little soil disturbance at seeding, significantly reducing fuel use, time, and costs of planting over traditional techniques.

Many states also have set up programs to help residents, businesses, and government facilities improve their energy efficiency and switch to low or zero-emission renewable energy sources instead of heavily polluting fossil fuels. Maryland has a program that provides tax incentives to residents and businesses that purchase clean energy technologies and/or energy-efficient products; for instance, buyers can avoid state sales tax on new washing machines, refrigerators, and room air conditioners that meet certain energy-efficiency standards. Here in Illinois, the Clean Energy Community Trust provides competitive grants, loans, and other financial incentives to develop, improve, and implement energy efficiency and renewable-energy projects and programs. Other Illinois programs provide assistance and incentives for the purchase and installation of renewable energy technologies such as solar panels.

Maine, Wisconsin, and Arizona have established "renewable portfolio standards" that require a certain percentage of generated power to come from renewable sources (as have a number of cities; the City of Chicago is working with forty-eight suburban governments to purchase 20 percent of their combined power needs from renewable energy sources). Texas and Minnesota require that a specific amount of new power-generating capacity come from renewable energy. And more than thirty states, including Illinois, now sponsor "net metering" programs that allow customers with their own electricity-generating systems (such as rooftop solar panels) to sell excess electricity they generate back to the local utility.

These are just a few of the many state programs to reduce GHG emissions. Maybe as more and more states lead the way on coping with global warming, Bush and his administration will finally find the courage to follow.

Get More Info

EPA’s Global Warming site

Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: