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Published on Friday, March 16, 2001 in the Independent/UK
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President Bush's U-Turn Exposes His Irresponsibility
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Editorial
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It may not yet be proven beyond the last scintilla of doubt that man-made pollutants are to blame for global warming. But so persuasive is the accumulating evidence that it takes either wilful blindness, or reckless pandering to a friendly industry, for a national leader to rule out the most obvious measure to curb the output of these pollutants.
Yet that is precisely what President George Bush has done, by reversing his election campaign pledge to regulate power-station emissions of carbon dioxide, by common consent the main global-warming gas. For this breathtakingly irresponsible decision, Mr Bush adduces two reasons: the fact that the case that humans are responsible for the current climate change is "incomplete"; and that regulating carbon dioxide is likely to lead to "significantly higher electricity prices", especially in the wake of the energy crisis in California. The most important thing, he insists, is to avoid anything that might "harm consumers". At which point, a couple of observations are in order. First, it was not regulation, but botched deregulation, which caused the black-outs debacle in California. And, second, only when ordinary Americans start to feel the pinch will the world's greediest energy consumer ever adopt a more sensible energy policy. In any case, gradual measures to curb carbon dioxide emissions, of the kind to which Mr Bush committed himself during the campaign, will not suddenly push the retail price index through the ceiling. The only merit of this first U-turn of the new administration is that it pulls away Mr Bush's mask. During the campaign he advocated mandatory reduction targets, stressing the contrast with the voluntary cutbacks sought by the avowedly environmentalist Al Gore. The oilman-turned-president, however, is now revealed for what he always has been: an unquestioning ally of big business in general, and big energy in particular. Otherwise the reversal bodes nothing but trouble. The US has signalled its indifference to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which sought to curb greenhouse gases. Mr Bush has killed hopes of breaking the impasse that wrecked the recent Hague conference on global warming, and has exacerbated a major economic dispute with Europe. He has undercut at least one cabinet member, and upset moderates in his own party, as well as utility companies that had accepted an orderly and predictable passage to lower emissions. The conclusion can only be that Mr Bush is neither wilfully blind nor a panderer – but both. © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. ### |