European leaders made a big commitment to fighting climate change last week by agreeing to renewable-energy mandates and goals for cutting carbon emissions. The goals will require citizen sacrifice and political finesse.
It’s time for the United States to play follow the leader. The action by the European Union stands in sharp contrast to the anything-goes-approach from the Bush administration.
While the U.S. is the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the administration has employed a policy of deny and delay when it comes to global warming.
The White House can’t even get its homework done on the issue. Last week, it was revealed that the administration has been sitting on a climate report required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Due a year ago but still in draft form, it predicts that our country’s greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 20 percent by 2020.
The U.S. already is responsible for 25 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Yet White House policy relies on voluntary measures that have barely put a dent in the problem.
This global problem is going to require a global response that includes this country as well as China, India and Russia.
While the president declines to meaningfully address the important and worsening problem of climate change, leaders of the newly elected Congress have pledged to take the lead. The first of their proposals should take shape by summer.
In the meantime, a number of states have been imposing their own strict limits on carbon emissions and fuel use. Last fall, California passed a bill establishing the most stringent carbon dioxide emission controls yet in the country. The state required a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.
Within recent weeks, the governors of five states agreed to cooperate to reduce greenhouse gases. The states represented are Arizona, California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington. We urge Gov. Bill Ritter to consider whether Colorado should participate.
It’s encouraging to see officials at many levels of government taking the issue seriously and making difficult choices. The EU’s decision will affect 490 million Europeans and will require renewable energy sources to make up a fifth of EU energy sources by 2020. President Bush has lost the opportunity to lead on this issue, but the United States can still make an enormous contribution by playing a bravado second fiddle.
