It's The Climate, Stupid

Rudy M. Baum, Managing Editor / Chemical and Engineering News 11mar02

Chemical and Engineering News is a publication of the American Chemistry Association

DURING BILL CLINTON'S SUCCESSFUL bid for the presidency in 1992, strategist James Carville posted a sign in the Little Rock, Ark., campaign headquarters that famously summed up Clinton's central message. "It's the Economy, Stupid," the sign proclaimed.

We're not at the point where the parallel message, "It's the Climate, Stupid," is going to carry an election against a popular, incumbent President, but I'm willing to bet that we will be in the not too distant future. Judging from President George W Bush's recently announced Global Climate Change Initiative, a candidate may be running against him using just that slogan.

Announced with great fanfare last month (C&EN, Feb. 18, page 10; see also page 33 of this issue), the Bush Administration's initiative can only be described as a cynical sop to an American public increasingly concerned about the prospects of global climate change. The initiative is billed as a bold step toward addressing climate change, when it is, in fact, a blueprint for doing nothing at all.

The centerpiece of the new Bush policy is a pledge to reduce the "greenhouse gas intensity" of the U .S. economy by 18% in the next 10 years. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). According to the White House, the President's initiative "sets America on a path to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, and-as the science justifies-to stop and then reverse that growth."

It does no such thing. The President's approach, according to the nonpartisan Pew Center on Global Climate Change, minimizes the economic impact of curtailing greenhouse gas emissions "by allowing emissions to rise or fall with economic output; however, it provides no assurance that a given level of environmental protection is measured in relation to GDP" In other words, as long as GDP is in the denominator of the equation, the Bush initiative guarantees nothing about the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gas intensity is likely to decline in the coming decade, but not because of anything the Bush Administration is pro posing. The Pew Center's analysis of the President's initiative points out that, "al though total emissions {of greenhouse gases} continued to rise, greenhouse gas intensity in fact fell over the last two decades."

Because of improved energy efficiency and the continuing transformation of the US economy toward services, greenhouse gas intensity in the U.S. declined 21% in the 1980s and 17% in the 1990s. If the pattern of the past 20 years continues, the President's goal for greenhouse gas intensity will be achieved with no changes in our pattern of greenhouse gas production. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions would continue to grow-- by 2012, they would be up 1-1% over 2002 levels and 280 over 1990 levels.

Is the global climate already changing? Last month, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that November 2001 through January 2002 was the warmest such period in the contiguous L'.5. since national records began in 1895.1 he previous record was established in November 1999 through January 2000. NOAA also reported that the January 2002 global temperature was the warmest in the 123-year surface record.

Climate change is not just about temperature. As temperature rises, models predict that rainfall patterns change as well. In addition to record warmth. the East Coast of the US. is experiencing unprecedented drought-the region from Maine to Georgia is classified as experiencing "serious" to "extreme' drought by the US. Drought Monitor as a result of declining rainfall patterns that go back to 1998.

The numbers don't prove that Earth's climate is changing. They do suggest how unpleasant climate change may be in the coming years. And they suggest to me that "It's the Climate, Stupid" is not farfetched as a campaign slogan levied against an Administration determined to do nothing about U .S. greenhouse gas emissions.