New approach to global warming

Governments around the world are preparing the December launch of negotiations on a new climate treaty to replace the controversial Kyoto accords, amid hopeful signs that leaders do not want to repeat that treaty's mistakes.

A growing number of world leaders now accept the view, long promoted by President Bush, that any new treaty, to be successful, must take the long view and win the participation of major developing nations like China and India. China this year overtook the United States as the major emitter of greenhouse gases that are thought to contribute to global warming.

Repeated studies have shown that the emissions curbs required by Kyoto are severe enough to impede economic growth in participating countries and encourage industries and jobs to migrate to countries not subject to ceilings, and yet will have a negligible impact on atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by 2050. The treaty expires in 2012.

Leaders of 21 Pacific Rim nations, meeting in Sydney, Australia, last weekend, agreed that any treaty that replaces Kyoto should aim toward mid-century, with an interim goal of reducing "energy intensity" — the amount of energy used to produce a given amount of goods and services — by 25 percent between now and 2030. The Financial Times noted that three nations that reject the Kyoto treaty's mandatory curbs, the United States, China and Australia, all signed the agreement.

In recent weeks spokesmen for the Bush administration have outlined a plan that would set emission targets for mid-century, vigorously promote the adoption of new energy technologies to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions without curbing economic growth, and encourage countries to create incentives for reducing emissions, but without the mandatory caps required by Kyoto. President Bush is said to see himself as a broker between the views of developing countries and the mainly European members of the Kyoto agreement.

Harlan Watson, the chief U.S. climate policy negotiator, told a United Nations meeting in Vienna last month that "there are probably more areas of agreement than disagreement" between the United States and the European Union on the future direction of climate policy, USA Today reported.

Environmentalists remain sharply critical of Mr. Bush's rejection of binding emissions ceilings for the United States. But Mr. Watson insisted that the nation's contribution to global targets to be set by the next climate change treaty will be significant, according to comments quoted by Bloomberg News. Preserving the climate "is going to require tremendous cuts, well beyond 50 percent in a number of countries," he said. It will clearly take decades to achieve such reductions without doing harm to developed and developing economies.

The administration's new approach to climate policy reflects a prudent response to the risk that manmade emissions may be contributing to a warmer world climate and its potential dangers.