

Reuters: Bush urges halt of CO2 emission growth by 2025



Background

President Bush, several months after the Bali climate conference, has announced the United States of America’s new climate policy: he wants our emissions to stop growing by the year 2025. That’s right, he wants them to stop growing. Not to go down, but to stop growing. Make sure you understand that part.



Also note, the president announced little (if any) plans that would actually stop emissions from growing.



Analysis

Now, there are principally three reasons for this:

1. To pressure China, India and other developing countries to start thinking about climate change

2. To speed up talks on a new international emissions treaty



Also, the initiative builds on the Administration’s new willingness to take a chance with an international treaty.



More needs to be done

This proposal obviously lacks any substance. First of all, only stopping emissions from growing by 2025 is too little, too late. The other problem, of course, is that Bush didn’t actually give any ideas on how to actually reduce emissions.