Bush To Set 2025 Carbon Emissions Target

Photo: ACS

related articles

The Washington Post is reporting that President Bush will propose a target for "stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025."

The afternoon speech in the Rose Garden has been hyped as a significant shift in position for a president who has shunned regulations to stop carbon dioxide emissions that fuel global warming. Republican lawmakers briefed on the new policies being considered had described them in previous reports as a way to head-off more stringent regulations being considered in Congress.

But "stopping the growth" of emissions falls far short of the goals that scientists are coalescing around. The United Nations has said that an 80-90% reduction in emissions from industrialized nations by 2050 will be required to stave off the worst consequences of global warming. Some have suggested even that may not be enough, but there's a growing consensus that the window to act is closing rapidly.

Bush will reportedly "speak forcefully about concerns he has over a possible rush to address the Earth's warming through a hodgepodge of regulations under existing federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act," the Post reports. In that, he should have wide support, since the pervasiveness of the problem demands a comprehensive solution, despite the Supreme Court's landmark decision that the EPA already has the authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

COMMENTS ()