True to form, President Clinton has missed another deadline—the self-imposed mid-August date for announcing his National Action Plan (NAP) to stabilize greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. The U.S. blueprint was to have been presented at an international negotiating session in Geneva to goad other nations into action. The predictable outcome: much talk, no action.
In an interview, Al Gore's chief communications director Marla Romash explained that the plan would be ready in late September— but don't count on it. First, the president has to settle a bitter international dispute within his circle of advisers: whether to protect the slowly recovering U.S. economy, already jeopardized by the new tax legislation, from further damage—or to accept the urgings for drastic action by a horde of White House environmental zealots, who preach a coming climate "catastrophe" while steadfastly ignoring scientific evidence to the contrary.
The still-unborn NAP was to have been the U.S. response to the vague obligation taken on when George Bush signed the Global Climate Treaty at last summer's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It would be better for all of us taxpayers and consumers to have the NAP be "stillborn."
A whole menagerie of policy proposals to enforce greenhouse gas stabilization has been in circulation for the better part of five years, since the beginning of the Bush administration. Some of these proposals, like enforcing higher CAFE (fuel efficiency) standards on cars, would do little else but raise their cost and make them less safe; others, like a tax on the carbon content of fuels, are even more punitive than Mr. Clinton’s ill-fated Btu tax.
It is sobering to note that after all the brave talk by European Community statesmen at the Earth Summit, their finance ministers just turned "thumbs down" on any economically harmful policy action—like a "carbon tax" to reduce CO2 emission by limiting energy use. Nor have these countries as yet ratified the Climate Treaty itself!
Even with European cooperation, not much could be done to stop the global rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases—and certainly much less if the United States were to act alone. U.S. emissions are now 25 percent of global, about the same as Western Europe. But with stable populations and mature economies in the industrial nations, it is Third World countries that will have a decisive effect on future growth of CO2. As their populations rise and their living standards go up, their energy consumption is bound to increase sharply—to build up infrastructure and industries and to supply much-wanted consumer goods. The Paris-based International Energy Agency projects global carbon emissions to grow from 5.88 to 8.60 million tons between 1990 and 2010. Of this, around 42 percent will be produced in member countries of the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development, 15 percent in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and 43 percent in the rest of the world, reflecting both rapid growth and extensive use of coal in India and China.
Here then is the dilemma faced by true believers in global warning disasters: The long-term goal of stable emissions calls for a "demographic transition" to reduced birth rates and stable populations, as has already taken place in the developed nations. But most experts agree that this requires first of all an increase in living standards—and therefore intensive energy use in the short term. Forget about global emissions limits!
The IEA estimates that a tax of $100 per metric ton of carbon would reduce emissions by only 9 percent by 2010: this translates into a tripling of the price of coal and a doubling of oil prices. Environmental activists nonetheless argue that the United States must exert "international leadership"; but others would label a carbon tax—or any attempt to restrict energy use by regulation —as demonstrating to the rest of the world how to commit economic suicide.
According to the Congressional Budget Office and several independent estimates, the cost to the US. economy would be in the multi-trillion-dollar range, with a loss of 600,000 jobs, increased poverty, and a drastic reduction in living standards. Other policy options, like imposing unrealistic efficiency mandates on cars by raising CAFE standards, would devastate the U.S. automobile industry, finally gaining on world competition, and turn Detroit into a ghost town.
Politicians may not realize that attempts to stabilize CO2, even if successful, would accomplish little. Here are some scientific facts to consider:
In view of these political and scientific factors that argue against any drastic action to limit emissions, the White House would be well advised to try punting—following the path adopted by the Bush administration, which proposed stabilizing greenhouse gases as a group rather than individually.
The rate of increase of energy use is slowly declining in the United States as a result of investments in conservation during the past two decades. Methane growth is declining—its cause not yet understood. An important group of greenhouse gases, chlorofluorocarbons, is being phased out for other reasons. Finally many electric utilities and industries have offered to help reduce global CO2 emissions by encouraging conservation at home and by making more efficient energy devices available also to Third World nations. The United States should take credit for such reductions—despite vocal on position by environmental zealots.
President Clinton can, if he chooses, take advantage of these options, "declare a victory,” and get applause for greenhouse gas stabilization—while at the same time doing as little harm as possible to the US. economy.