A new report prepared for the administration by the US Environmental Protection Agency and quietly published says that it will continue to seek an approach to the problem of climate change that will not harm the US economy. But in a remarkable about-turn the causes of recent global warming are linked to human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
Although the report Climate action report 2002 predicts far-reaching changes in geographic conditions, including the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more heat waves, the permanent loss of some coastal environments as well as some benefits from increased agricultural and forest growth, it has not as yet changed the administration’s attitude to Kyoto. It repeats the president’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in the US by 18 per cent over the next decade through a combination of voluntary and incentive based measures and the use of technology. This strategy is expected to achieve emission reductions comparable to the reductions prescribed by Kyoto, but ‘without the threat to economic growth that rigid national emissions limits would bring’.
The new document strongly concludes that no matter what is done to cut emissions in the future, nothing can be done about the environmental consequences of several decades’ worth of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases already in the atmosphere.
It recommends adapting to inevitable changes. It does not recommend making rapid reductions in greenhouse gases to limit warming, the approach favoured by many environmental groups and countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore fits in neatly with the climate plan Mr. Bush announced in February. He called for voluntary measures that would allow gas emissions to continue to rise, with the goal of slowing the rate of growth.
Yet the new report’s predictions present a sharp contrast to previous statements by the administration, which has always emphasised the need for more research to resolve scientific questions, by distancing itself from the line taken by the administration and industrialists, who continue to question the validity of the science pointing to the damaging effects of global warming. The fracture has encouraged environmentalists, who are saying that it suggests a jarring disconnect between the administration’s findings on the climate problem and its proposed solutions. “The Bush administration now admits that global warming will change America’s most unique wild places and wildlife forever,” said Mark Van Putten, president of the National Wildlife Federation, a private environmental group. “How can it acknowledge a disaster in the making and then refuse to help solve the problem?” Many companies and trade groups had sought last year to tone down parts of the report. But for the most part, the document does not reflect industry’s wishes. It does emphasise some benefits of warming but it says environmental havoc is coming as well. ‘Some of the goods and services lost through the disappearance or fragmentation of natural ecosystems are likely to be costly or impossible to replace,’ the report says.
Administration officials had previously been careful to avoid specifics and hedged their views on coming climate shifts with substantial caveats. The president and his aides often described climate change as a ‘serious issue,’ but rarely as a serious problem. Industrialists have generally reacted by claiming that the report’s warnings of dire consequencs are unjustified and overstated.
