George W. Bush does not want his presidency to look an all-round failure, and is trying to burnish his image wherever possible in the months remaining before he leaves the White House.

On April 16, the day before the Paris Conference on Climate Change and with an eye to the U.S. congressional debate on harmful emissions into the atmosphere in June, the U.S. president delivered a speech on the topic.

He was at pains to demonstrate that his Administration shares public concern over global warming and is taking resolute measures to amend the situation. The president solemnly announced that the United States must stop increasing greenhouse emissions by 2025.

On the whole, however, his position on climate change has not changed in any substantial way. He is still against the U.S. entering any binding international environmental agreements that could be a hindrance to the country's economy.

So far Bush has been on the receiving end of criticism from the Democrats and from the world, especially the Europeans, for ignoring climate change and refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement on mandatory cuts of greenhouse emissions, which the majority of countries signed in 1997. America is the only major Western country that has not ratified the protocol.
Most Republicans, like American big business, do not share the concerns and enthusiasm of the Democrats and the Europeans over the fight against global warming. During his first election campaign Bush was blunt on the issue. He said he objected to the environmental policy stipulated by the Kyoto Protocol. He said it would sharply raise the prices of gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas and electricity and that the agreement would greatly increase the load on the U.S. economy without offering protection against undesirable climate change. The Kyoto Protocol is ineffective, inadequate and unfair towards America because it exempts from its recommendations 80% of the world, including such major population centers as China and India.

For their part, China and India believed it would be unfair to impose on them the same kind of restrictions as on the developed countries. China, for example, believes in a "general, but differentiated responsibility" and sees the world environmental agenda as an attempt by the Western countries to slow down the growth of China's economy and impose development models that benefit the West. China considers many nature-conservation standards to be unfair and is not going to apply them in practice until it approaches the per capita income levels of the Western countries. The UN seems to agree with that approach recognizing that the rich countries have been polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution and that it is unrealistic to put the same demands to them as to the developing countries.

The data to the effect that China has already surpassed the U.S. in terms of emission of pollutants published shortly before his latest speech was a real godsend to the American President. The Republicans now have a new opportunity to use China to deflect criticism of America for inaction in the fight against global warming.

The current American President believes that the best way to combat climate change is to develop new environmentally clean technologies, nuclear energy and to use market mechanisms: regulation of the power and natural gas markets, improved taxation schemes and trade in "emission quotas". His critics reply that all these are mere good wishes unsupported by clear-cut international obligations.

America's position of dismissing international regulation as a means to fight global warming may change after the presidential elections. All the presidential candidates - Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and even the Republican John McCain are ready to cooperate with other countries in this field more seriously.

The participants in the international climate change talks look forward to the election of the next U.S. president hoping that a global climate agreement would be reached in Copenhagen in 2009.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.





Source: RIA