President Bush bangs another nail in the coffin of global climate control
US president Bush has confused the issue of global greenhouse gas emissions control in a clever move to stall any real progress at the G8 summit next week. Where anyone with any kind of concern for our planet’s future, and hence our own future would see this as a disaster for greenhouse gas emission reduction, our prime minister, Tony Blair called it an important step forward. An important step forward? To undermine the rest of the world’s efforts and to refuse to accept any responsibility for global warming is a step forward? Where British and German officials have stressed that a requirement for the next international climate agreement should be binding caps on carbon pollution for developed nations and limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius, President Bush is refusing to accept any cap on greenhouse gas emissions for the USA, as he thinks it will damage the economy.
With no cap in place for the USA, other big players on the world pollution stage like Russia, China and India will argue against any cap on their levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Unless the biggest contributors to global warming agree to, and take the necessary steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, what hope is there? In a few years time, if we carry on at the current rate of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions we will have much more to worry about than the US economy.
