U.S. Fiddles as the Planet Warms

In his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” Vice President Al Gore called global warming “the most serious problem that we have ever faced.” Since then, evidence that it is causing harmful climate changes--including the flooding of some island nations and a depleted food chain in Antarctica--has increased. But there’s precious little U.S. leadership in making the global changes that could slow the warming trend.

Last December, the United States did agree to an international treaty in Kyoto, Japan, pledging that by 2010 it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 7% below what they were in 1990. The details of implementation were left for a second round, in Bonn, Germany; the second week of those talks begins today. But the whole deal is likely to fall apart unless the U.S. commits to binding reductions of its domestic greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. negotiators were doing the opposite last week, proposing that the United States be allowed to obtain all of its emission credits by building low-pollution energy and industrial plants in other countries.

U.S. high technologies that reduce global warming should be encouraged, and so should all kinds of market incentives. But America has to show the world that it can do more than rake in green profits from selling technology.

Part of the problem in Bonn is the U.S. track record. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Washington promised to reduce fossil fuel emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, but emission levels just kept increasing. Other Rio signatories like Britain and Germany have already met their nonbinding 2000 targets, in part by reducing coal use and scrapping inefficient energy plants.

The U.S., with only 4% of the world’s population, creates 25% of its greenhouse gases. Developing nations are understandably wary of investing in expensive green technologies before seeing that the world leader is willing to make its own big investments.

In a speech today on climate and global warming, Gore is expected to tout modest emission reduction plans that don’t add up to a fraction of what the U.S. agreed to in Kyoto. The administration should let its negotiators commit to domestic reductions, then vigorously press Congress to ratify. It should also counter the energy lobbyists who predict economic disaster if they lose the billions in tax breaks that encourage domestic coal and oil production. In fact, energy constitutes only 2.2% of the total costs of U.S. industry and experts agree that greenhouse emissions can be reduced with little or no harm to the economy.

This groundbreaking global treaty aimed at keeping the planet habitable can succeed. But President Clinton, Gore and Congress will have to open their ears to voices well beyond the big U.S. oil companies.