The fractious debate over the Kyoto Protocol has obscured the agreement of most parties - including the Bush administration - that long-term action on global warming is necessary.....
To break the political log-jam on climate, policymakers on the left and right need to move beyond the increasingly polarized and unproductive debate over near-term emission control measures modeled on the Kyoto framework. Instead, we need a new policy dynamic....
First, despite the remaining uncertainties, there is growing agreement - on the part of the Bush administration and most scientists and policymakers - that industrial activities are contributing to a rapid increase in GHG concentrations in the atmosphere andthat this buildup may well alter the earth's climate in serious and potentially harmful ways.
This consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real and requires a meaningful government response did not exist just a few short years ago and reflects a striking evoluition in thinking among many traditional climate skeptics.
Second, President Bush explicitly reaffirmed U.S. support for the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change [of which Kyoto is merely a sub-agreement --TL], whose long-term goal is to stabilize atmospheric concentratons of GHGs at levels "that would prevent dangerous antrhroponic interference with the climate system." [And which also made it a LEGAL FACT that "anthropogenic climate change is real and requires a meaningful government response." Seems like the administration is only 10 years behind what it agreed to. And I though Iraq was slow to act.
The Senate passed that treaty, btw, so it is law in the USA. -- TL]
And third, there is a widespread recognition that breakthrough technologies for producing and consuming energy are necessary for the dramatic changes in the carbon profile of our economy required to reverse the current GHG buildup and achieve the convetion's stabilization goal.
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The Environmental Forum, Robert Sussman (Deputy Admin. of EPA, 1993-94, Partner at Latham & Watkins, D.C.) "Climate Change." Vol. 20, No. 1, Jan/Feb 2003, p. 19.
Thanks to the good doctor for an excuse to drag out my soapbox. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
