The U.S. and China
April 17th, 2007 by Carbon CoalitionIf China jumps off a bridge, does that mean the U.S. should too? Thanks to the Bush Administration’s choice to use China’s rising emission levels as an excuse for U.S. passivity, we have been standing on the edge of the bridge for quite some time. Fortunately, China may be headed in a new direction. As a developing nation China was excused from binding emission targets set by the Kyoto Protocol (an international climate change treaty that the U.S. has not ratified). On a trip to Tokyo last week, Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, announced that China was ready to take part in new international negotiations set to limit greenhouse gas emissions. This editorial in The New York Times says that “such caps would be costly medicine, which China is unlikely to swallow as long as the U.S. doesn’t do so as well–thus using America as a cover for inaction just as Mr. Bush is using China to excuse his own.”
Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator, Dave Johnson, announced that there has only been a 1% growth in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005, which he says demonstrates that the voluntary approach the Bush Administration has been advocating “is delivering real results.” But aren’t we trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch responded to this announcement: ‘’Things have come to a pretty sad state of affairs when the EPA tries to spin increased greenhouse gas emissions as a victory.” (Read the entire story here.)
