Article
from
The New York Times
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Much is being made of the Bush administration''s
exclusion of the United States from an agreement reached by 178
countries last week to move forward on combating global warming. But
both those who deplore the Bush administration''s snub and those who
agree with the president that America couldn''t afford to join in are losing
sight of the long view. To really head off climate change, the world must
eventually make even larger (much larger) cuts in its emissions of
greenhouses gases than those envisioned in the Kyoto agreement and its
refinements in Bonn. But we have some time. The Kyoto protocol calls for
reductions from 2008 to 2012. In fact, the large reductions can wait for
another decade or two after that. But to make these cuts in time, we
must begin now to engage private business and private inventiveness in
attacking the problem.
The world''s success in preventing damaging climate change will depend on
how it gets its energy over coming decades, as conventional oil and gas
grow scarcer. If most new energy comes from burning coal or new fossil
fuels, like oil sands, by 2100 the amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere will be higher than it has been for 50 million years. If most of
the energy comes from nonfossil sources, or if new technologies allow us
to burn fossil fuels without emitting carbon dioxide, then climate change
can at least be greatly slowed and perhaps eventually stabilized. Relative
to this vast choice looming a few decades ahead, squabbles over the
stringency of the Kyoto emission targets are foolish.
We have a model that can help. The 1987 Montreal protocol on the ozone
layer, now endorsed by 177 countries, is an example that is being
overlooked. Its success did not come from its initial 1987 controls on the
use of chemicals that deplete ozone, but from its adaptability in achieving
its goals. The flexibility of the Montreal protocol made it easier for industry
and governments to accept firm goals in the first place, making it possible
for the world to move in a common direction.
The international controls under the protocol have been revised five
times, each time with the advice of independent experts from many
nations, on the applicability of new developments in science and
technology. Letting regulations adapt to changing technical possibilities
promoted an intense effort by private industry to reduce the use of
ozone-depleting chemicals and develop substitutes for use in products like
air conditioners and refrigerators. By participating, industries were better
able to solve the technical problems they faced in meeting existing and
anticipated regulations, and they could spot commercial opportunities in
the phasing out of the old chemicals. Since 1987 the use of
ozone-depleting chemicals has declined 90 percent worldwide at modest
cost, an achievement that once seemed unthinkable.
The Montreal lesson has not been learned well; political forces remain
polarized on climate policy. The paralyzing deadlock grows ever more
perilous as new scientific reports continue to strengthen the case that we
are changing the global climate, that changes are likely to accelerate and
that the effects, in all countries, will be serious. We must break the
impasse.
First, the nations of the world must make some - any - move to curb
emissions, some law or rule that will exact a cost on power generators
and other industries when they emit greenhouse gases, even if only a
modest cost at first. Strategically, this would show the world is moving in
a new direction, and the additional cost would be an incentive to develop
new, cleaner technology. Implementing the Kyoto protocol without
American participation can help if it means adoption of real controls by
other nations. But international leaders must also keep trying to bring the
United States on board. Soon, because of the dominance of the American
economy, American participation will be necessary to make global financial
penalties and incentives work.
Second, the world must establish a process to identify and evaluate new
technologies to reduce emissions (like ways of separating the carbon from
fossil fuels and putting it underground) and linking periodic review and
adaptation of rules to these advances. It is vital that the energy industry
and other businesses be serious participants in this process. This will
require some combination of providing incentives to needed changes and
removing barriers to innovation.
The failure of the Bush administration to participate in Kyoto does not
mean that significant progress cannot be made by other nations.
Eventually, domestic politics here may well force the administration to
become engaged on this issue. In the meantime, providing incentives for
innovations from private industry will help make a response to global
warming economically more palatable in the future.
Edward A. Parson, associate professor of public policy in the John F.
Kennedy School at Harvard, was a consultant in the White House
Science Office under Bill Clinton.
