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By JITENDRA
JOSHI
Global warming hot in US
WASHINGTON: It was once exiled to the
chilly wastes of fringe discourse, but now global warming is
taking on a new urgency for politicians, businesses and
campaigners in the world’s biggest economy.
Climate change has zoomed up the Washington agenda since the
Democrats retook control of Congress last month, with a flurry of
committee hearings last week and several bills now in the
legislative pipeline.
A decade ago, the Senate voted unanimously against any action by
the United States without equal action by major developing
economies. But now the Democrats are promising a grand law by
Independence Day, July 4.
Even the Republican administration of President George W. Bush is
sounding less reticent. Bush used the high-profile stage of his
State of the Union address in January to call climate change a
“serious challenge.”
“There is no doubt that all recent scientific evidence confirms
that the Earth’s climate is changing and that most of those
changes are due to human activity,” the World Bank’s chief
scientist, Robert Watson, told AFP.
“The fact that there is draft legislation in Congress, action by a
number of states and the private sector, and recognition of the
ethical issues associated with climate change by a number of
evangelical leaders, is very significant,” he said.
Under one bill co-sponsored by a Republican presidential hopeful,
Senator John McCain, the United States would introduce a mandatory
market to “cap and trade” emissions of greenhouse gases by
industry.
Under this system pioneered by the European Union, companies trade
excess emissions of gases like carbon dioxide among themselves
with the aim of slashing overall levels.
Such a scheme is already being used experimentally by California
and northeastern US states, while pressure for change is coming
also from US Christian elders who argue that God entrusted the
Earth to man’s stewardship.
“The debate is over, my friends. The question is, what do we do,”
McCain told a forum of global legislators held at the US Senate
last week.
McCain’s bill is supported by the leading Democratic presidential
runners, senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Backed by industry, many US politicians now argue that the costs
of inaction would far outweigh the economic downside of capping
emissions of gases that scientists say are smothering the Earth’s
atmosphere in a blanket of heat.
Heavyweight US companies are demanding a national cap and trade
system, which could generate large profits for those firms that
can slash their own emissions, and also give major investment
opportunities in new technology.
Alcoa, General Electric, DuPont and other corporate giants have
launched the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP),
demanding enforced change at the federal level.
USCAP includes environmental groups like the Natural Resources
Defense Council, which have not normally been comfortable
bedfellows of big business. Such groups have long been pushing for
change at the grassroots level.
Former vice-president Al Gore, an Oscar nominee for his
climate-change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, plans a
concert on July 7 featuring acts such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers
to promote action on the issue.
The new sense of urgency comes with the Kyoto treaty, the world’s
first serious attempt to combat the problem, expiring in 2012.
Bush refused to adopt Kyoto, which excluded China, India and other
big emerging economies.
And for proponents of action, every day of inaction now takes the
world closer to a “tipping point” when the effects of climate
change will become a runaway disaster.–AFP
 
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