On climate, a lack of leadership
THE DIFFERENT planet Earth that humankind is creating through global warming will be a much less habitable place for those living near the equator. But droughts, flooding, extreme heat, wildfires, violent storms, and species extinction will hit areas all over the globe, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
While human ingenuity will mitigate some of the worst effects, nations must agree quickly on measures to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. No meaningful agreement will take shape, though, unless the two biggest sources of carbon dioxide, the United States and China, stop sitting on the sidelines in the effort to limit emissions.
Climate change began to get the priority it deserves last week when the United Nations Security Council debated it for the first time. In June, the subject will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight industrial nations when they meet with representatives of five large emerging economies: China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa. Advocates of an agreement to build on the Kyoto Protocol for emission limits, which expire in 2012, must use these two gatherings to create a consensus for action that includes the United States and China.
China and other developing countries were exempted from Kyoto limits because their greenhouse gas emissions had been slight. The Bush administration has used China's and India's special status as one reason for its flat rejection of Kyoto. Since China got that exemption in the 1990s, however, its growth and its production of greenhouse gases have skyrocketed. Last year alone, it built 94 electric power plants burning coal, the fossil fuel that emits the most carbon dioxide.
Coal is also the energy source that China has in greatest abundance. If it continues to rely on coal for most of its electric supply, all the best efforts of the rest of the world to slow global warming will be in vain. This puts a premium on speedy development of coal gasification technology, which allows for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, though at a higher cost than conventional coal combustion. Coal gasification units have been built as pilot plants, but not at full industrial capacity. The United States and other industrial nations with significant coal reserves of their own should take the lead in scaling up this technology and helping China and other countries take advantage of it.
Until now, China has favored economic growth over environmental protection. It is unlikely to take on the extra expense of gasifying coal and then storing carbon dioxide emissions if it does not see other nations, including the United States, acting in a similarly responsible way. If the Bush administration persists in rejecting this leadership role, Congress must step into the breach and pass tough, mandatory carbon limits on its own. 