A weekly series by UPI examining the potential human impact on global climate change.
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BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 2 (UPI) -- The Bush administration is forging ahead with its goal of reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012.
That is according to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who said the administration's effort "is informed by science, emphasizes innovation and technological solutions and promotes international collaboration."
Outside groups say, however, that the administration is doing too little, that the policies will not reduce greenhouse warming significant, and the approach will leave the United States far behind the rest of the world in the environmental technologies of the future.
Abraham outlined the administration's approach to climate change in a paper for the journal Science last week.
"Our approach focuses on reducing emissions while sustaining the economic growth needed to finance investment in new, clean energy technologies," Abraham said. "The administration estimates that this commitment will achieve about 100 million metric tons of carbon equivalent of reduced emissions in 2012, with more than 500 MMTCe in cumulative savings over the decade."
The administration is using "an array of policy measures," which rely primarily on financial incentives and voluntary efforts, Abraham wrote. It also is proposing $4 billion in tax credits for alternative energy and energy efficient technologies.
"Annually, more than $700 million is being spent to advance energy efficiency technologies (plus $500 million for accelerated deployment) and more than $200 million supports renewable energy," he wrote, adding that an additional $2 billion is being spent on climate change science.
Abraham's analysis is "probably as good an articulation as you could get of the administration's program," Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told United Press International. "But it continues business as usual for the next 10 years. They don't have anything to really insure that, and we don't think that it's adequate."
For instance, Claussen said, "they're putting money into climate science. It's the same money and the same program we've had for the last decade, which is OK, but it's not revolutionary, or a big change of direction."
In July 2003, the Pew Center issued a report on "Future U.S. Energy Scenarios," which found that without a mandatory carbon cap, "the absolute level of U.S. emissions rises in the range of 15 to 50 percent over the year 2000 levels ... despite the fact that the carbon intensity of the economy declines considerably."
A market-based, cap-and-trade system for carbon was proposed by the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act -- sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. -- which gathered 43 votes in the Senate -- including a number of Republicans -- but which was vigorously opposed by the administration.
"Last year, the Bush administration increased fuel economy standards for new light trucks and sport utility vehicles by 1.5 miles per gallon over the next three model years, leading to the estimated avoidance of 9.4 MMTCe of emissions," Abraham wrote.
Claussen countered that under McCain-Lieberman, "we could improve fuel efficiency beyond 1.5 miles per gallon, as the National Academy of Sciences has pointed out."
European nations are pursuing emissions trading among industrial facilities to reduce carbon buildup in the atmosphere. The idea originated in the United States, where it was tried to control nitrogen and sulfur emissions in electric powerplants. It enjoyed some success, but it has been abandoned by the Bush administration.
"It worked," John Pershing, director of the World Resource Institute's Climate, Energy and Pollution Program, told UPI. "We got significant reductions at a relatively low cost."
There is a whole variety of things that need to be done, Flavin said. "The question is, 'Are you serious about your incentives?' This administration is not serious about market incentives."
"It should be pursued in this country," Claussen said. "In the end, it has to be supplemented by more traditional regulations. It will take a very long time for the effects of a modest emissions trading system to take effect."
Those regulations should affect automobiles in particular, but also should include other products, such as household appliances.
"We need to put significant amounts of money into long-term technology development," Claussen said. "We need another industrial revolution here. I don't think the kind of funding the administration is suggesting is up to it."
Other observers were more critical.
"To call this a policy or commitment to do anything on climate change is an overstatement," Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, told UPI. "There is a good deal of sleight-of-hand here. They are following the research and development from the previous administration. There is not substantial R&D under way."
Flavin said the goal for CO2 reduction Abraham cites is not very ambitious.
"This bold statement that we are going to decrease the carbon intensity economy by 18 percent, that's just business as usual ... If you add all of these numbers up, this is a prescription for runaway climate change, even if they achieve all their goals."
Indeed, the U.S. goal is small compared with some of the European nations. The British government, for example, has announced an ambitious program to cut its CO2 emissions by 60 percent by the year 2050.
"We plan to be on an approximately straight line between 1990 and 2050," Sir David King, chief science adviser to the U.K. government, said last February. "One of the promises to the country from the Chief Science Adviser is that if we get into this early, we start playing the economic game in the sense that we get into the technologies that we can export to other countries that undoubtedly will need alternatives to fossil fuel energy sources. So we are investing in research, development and demonstration."
Flavin said the United States already lags in the technologies of the future.
"We've fallen so far behind in automobile hybrid-electric technology, especially," he said. "If we see dramatic increases in oil prices, or the world gets serious about carbon, we are going to lose most of our auto market to the Japanese."
He added that for "anybody who is really investing in auto companies, you'd have to downgrade the investment in American companies, based on the risk, because they're not ready for those things that are likely to occur."
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Dan Whipple covers the environment for UPI Science News. E-mail [email protected]
