U.S. must step up on climate change
The health care debate is putting climate change on the back burner, which means the U.S. may not pass a law to cut down greenhouse gas emissions anytime soon. Commentator Dan Esty says that's a cop out.
Dan Esty (cci.som.yale.edu)
More on Commentaries
TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: The United Nations is moving ahead on greenhouse gas emissions, with or without the United States. The UN is working on a new global warming treaty that's set to be formalized in Copenhagen this December. Commentator Dan Esty says Congress not getting its act together and passing a U.S. climate change bill before that would just be a cop out.
DAN ESTY: The Obama administration's negotiating team is likely to arrive in Copenhagen empty-handed. That means the prospects for real success in tackling climate change this year is all but dead.
If the U.S. committed to its own legislation slashing greenhouse gas emissions, then other nations, including China and India, would find themselves pressed to commit to emissions controls as well.
But without legislation, the United States cedes its leadership role in Copenhagen this December, making substantial progress on a new global treaty impossible.
For Copenhagen to lead to a meaningful global accord, the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" must be revived. Every nation must be part of the solution. No country can be allowed to sit on the sidelines.
Of course, policies and resource commitments will vary depending on a nation's level of development. The United States, Europe, and other wealthy countries will have to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years, while the big emerging economies like China have to agree to limit the rate of growth in their emissions.
But if the United States isn't willing to sign up to shoulder its share of the burden, the effort to mobilize a worldwide response to climate change cannot move forward.
Outside Europe, where an emissions control system is now in place, there is little interest in taking action until the United States addresses its own emissions. And the Europeans are growing tired of carrying the load alone.
Recent environmental history suggests that real success in global-scale issues depends on not just U.S. participation but U.S. leadership.
Scientists tell us that the climate clock is ticking. We may have already passed the point where significant damage from global warming and the associated sea level rise, changed rainfall patterns, disruptions to agriculture, and increased intensity of hurricanes, is unavoidable.
Simply put, the absence of U.S. leadership leaves the planet in peril. But that seems to be where we are headed.
RYSSDAL: Dan Esty is a professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He was on the U.S. negotiating team that produced the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That's the one before the Kyoto protocols.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
09/09/2009
The Can't Do Republicans have won and America has lost again. We will be buying energy technology from the Chinese thanks to the GOP.
From Demarest, NJ, 09/09/2009
Idiots. We are a country of idiots. The sun revolves not just around earth, but around America. If you sail to the horizon beyond America, your ship will fall off the planet into space. Sit back, fat, dumb and happy, America, as we sink further into history. It was nice while it lasted.
From Tampa, FL, 09/08/2009
Why should we? We can't even adapt to the Metric System like the rest of the world.
From Gilbert, AZ, 09/08/2009
Why do the tree huggers only listen to the people who say "the sky is falling" if we do not act now? Global warming is a hoax! In fact, there are now more scientist who do not believe in it than do. It is sort of like the scare tacticts they used on us a year ago about the stimulous. We did not need it then and we do not need it now or will we ever need it. You cannot spend your way out of a financial situation. Borrowing only makes it worst in the long run. We would probably be out of this mess by now if the government had stayed out of it like our constitution says they should. Mark my words! The stimulus and the other spending bills will be our demise!
From Demarest, NJ, 09/08/2009
That's perfect, Robert --- let's deny the obvious, put our heads in the sand and keep on leading the world in pollution. Just the sort of leadership the rest of the world has come to expect from us over the past 30 years. No, the polar ice cap isn't melting, nor are glaciers all over the world. Eyewitness and photographic evidence of this has been doctored and photoshopped by evil socialist treehuggers who refuse to get all their news from Fox and Rush. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not 200 times higher now than last century; Al Gore invented that stat, right after he invented the internet, right Robert? No, you're right, let's blow the whole thing off and keep on buying gas, polluting and refusing to change anything. Because we're Americans! We can say and do anything! No matter what the facts!
From sonora, CA, 09/08/2009
Dan Esty, I appreciate you comment. However, what you do not see is that many people in small towns like mine don't even believe that Global Warming is fact, they believe it is a liberal lie whose intent is to advance some political agenda. In my home town of Sonora, California the letters to the editor constantly quote cherry picked opinions and "tea parties." For example, John Stossel expose with four scientist who believe Warming up for debate. Penn and Teller did a similar warming is a fraud program. When Obama proposes confronting warming, the same people who are attacking health care will rise up claiming that it is just a hidden tax that there's plenty of oil under Denver. The scientific community had better draft a short simple statement signed by every science department at every major university and foundation in America that states the reality and invites citizens to get the facts from their most respected institutions. Get it on every radio and TV in America. If you wait you will be in the same spot Obama is on health care- right on the facts, right on the legislation but painted with misinformation and fear. When someone who is happy with medicare doesn't trust the government to run a health care plan, then you know how much trouble legislation on environment is in. And you my friend will soon be known as a "egghead" short for you don't really know a thing about the ranch.
Post a Comment: Please be civil, brief and relevant.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. All comments are moderated. Marketplace reserves the right to edit any comments on this site and to read them on the air if they are extra-interesting. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting.
You must be 13 or over to submit information to American Public Media. The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party. For more information see Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.