Bush sees light on human role in global warming

3.00pm - By RUPERT CORNWALL

WASHINGTON - In a striking reversal, the Bush administration has belatedly acknowledged that global warming is more than "an issue" but a major problem -- and that, yes, the burning of fossil fuels by human beings, first and foremost by American human beings, is the prime reason.

The admission, a first for the Bush White House which has flatly rejected the Kyoto treaty cutting the emission of greenhouse gases, comes in a report to the United Nations that sets out the impact of global warming on the US itself.

These changes, as average temperatures climb by several degrees over this century, are likely to include more extreme weather – droughts and wildfires, storms and flooding - as well as the disappearance of whole eco-systems such as alpine meadows in the Rockies and certain forest types in the southern US.

On the other side of the balance sheet, forest growth in northern parts of the country may accelerate, while with longer growing seasons, food production in some regions may actually increase.

The report, White House officials stress, does not signify a road-to-Damascus conversion that will turn Bush environmental policy on its head. Nor will it change overnight the habits of a country accounting for 5 per cent of the world's population but 25 per cent of the emissions which cause global warming.

Entitled "US Climate Action Report 2002," it concludes that whatever is done, nothing Washington does will mitigate the effects of the pollutants already in the atmosphere. Thus it does not challenge the administration's basic position, that climate change is inevitable, and that the most sensible approach is not to try and fight it, but to adapt to it.

Nor does it contradict Mr Bush's controversial "Clear Skies" policy of voluntary restraint and fiscal incentives for cleaner technology, which does not address the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. But the President's stance is causing quiet ructions within the federal bureaucracy, and doing his image little good on Capitol Hill ahead of the midterm elections this November.

Senior officials who actually implement federal environmental policy are increasingly voting with their feet in exasperation at the administration's continuing pro-business policies and its refusal to pay anything more than lip-service to the opposite point of view.

According to the Los Angeles Times yesterday, dozens of lawyers and administrators at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior have resigned or are thinking of resigning, as the government not only refuses to bring in tougher anti-pollution laws, but often fails to enforce those that are on the statute book.

The most spectacular departure was that of Eric Schaeffer, head of the EPA enforcement office, who quit three months ago, accusing the administration of soft-pedalling on pending lawsuits against coal-fired power plants, saying he was "furious all the time".

Of late however, the pro-industry tilt has caused several political defeats for Mr Bush, most notably when the Senate threw out the measure that would have opened up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

The Enron scandal meanwhile has embarrassingly displayed a White House far more interested in the views of energy companies than of conservation groups.

nzherald.co.nz/climate

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