From The Progress Report of the American Center for Progress Action Fund

CLIMATE CHANGE

Standing Athwart History
As the threat of global climate crisis grows, the global mechanisms for 
averting disaster are being gutted. A new report published by the National 
Academy of Sciences found that from 2000 to 2004, global industry emitted 
roughly 7.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide, millions more than the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had projected "under its most 
extreme scenario." Meanwhile, the world's only international pact mandating 
cuts in carbon emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, is set to expire in 2012. With 
this backdrop, Bush administration negotiators met this week in Germany in 
advance of next month's G8 summit of the world's richest nations. German 
Chancellor Angela Merkel has "been pushing hard to get the Group of 8 to 
take significant action on climate change," setting bold new standards to 
take the place of Kyoto. Virtually alone in resisting her is President Bush. 
"In unusually harsh language," Bush administration negotiators rejected 
Germany's proposal, complaining that it "crosses multiple red lines in terms 
of what we simply cannot agree to." (For more, read the Center for American 
Progress's global warming blog, Climate Progress.)

BUSH BLOCKING PROGRESS ON EVERY FRONT: Bush's drive to hobble the G8 climate 
change declaration was first uncovered two weeks ago, when reports showed 
that the United States was seeking to eliminate a section in the G8 draft 
that included "a pledge to limit the global temperature rise this century to 
3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as an agreement to reduce worldwide 
greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050." 
(Scientists warn that an increase of more than 3.6 degrees this century 
"could trigger disastrous consequences such as mass extinction of species 
and accelerated melting of polar ice sheets, which would raise sea levels.") 
Bush administration officials also tried to eliminate draft language that 
said, "We acknowledge that the U.N. climate process is the appropriate forum 
for negotiating future global action on climate change." In response, 15 
House committee chairmen wrote Bush urging him not to gut the G8 
declaration: "The G8 Summit should be an opportunity to galvanize 
international support for addressing this looming threat, not an opportunity 
to prevent and undermine international action." Bush ignored their message. 
Likewise, the Bush administration is blocking local progress on climate 
change, refusing to approve efforts by 12 states "to institute tougher 
standards for tailpipe emissions than US regulations require." In an op-ed 
last week, Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Jodi Rell (R-CT) charged 
that Bush's resistance â??borders on malfeasance."

CLIMATE CHANGE EXASPERATING POVERTY CHALLENGE: Noting the focus on 
anti-poverty measures at recent G8 summits, the international development 
group Oxfam has issued a new report highlighting the "deep injustice in the 
impacts of climate change": the poor nations least responsible for the 
greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming will bear the brunt 
of its devastating impacts. For Africa that means dramatic reductions in 
agricultural productivity, hundreds of millions newly exposed to water 
shortages, 5-10 percent loss in GDP in coastal countries, and an expanded 
range of malaria to exhaust already the deficient heath services. Global 
warming is already exacerbating poverty, yet methods and levels of 
development assistance around the world and in the United States have yet to 
take global warming into account. The World Bank estimates that 40 percent 
-- approximately $40 billion annually -- of development assistance and 
concessional financing is directed at activities that will be affected by 
climate change. Oxfam estimates that it will cost developing countries $50 
billion a year to adapt to climate change.

A SYMBOL OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS: This weekend, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) 
led a bipartisan delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw "firsthand 
evidence that climate change is a reality." Greenland is losing ice at an 
alarming rate of 100 billion tons ever year, twice as fast as it was five 
years ago. The melting is fundamentally altering the salinity of the world's 
oceans ("What happens when a saltwater environment becomes more fresh 
lake?"), and fueling a potentially catastrophic rise in sea levels. Should 
all of Greenland's ice sheet thaw, sea levels could rise by 21 feet and 
swamp the world's coastal cities. (CNN's Anderson Cooper reported live from 
Greenland last week.) Pelosi then traveled to meet European leaders for 
climate talks, praising Germany for "its leadership on the issue" and saying 
"she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path."

NO SOLUTION IN COAL: Meanwhile, even as congressional leaders draft 
legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, "a powerful roster of Democrats and 
Republicans is pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels." 
Prodded by "intense lobbying from the coal industry," lawmakers from coal 
states are proposing that taxpayers spend billions of dollars to subsidize 
the coal industry's production of liquid diesel fuel. This is a dangerously 
backwards idea. Coal-to-liquid fuels "produce almost twice the volume of 
greenhouse gases as ordinary diesel," and the production process of such 
fuels "creates almost a ton of carbon dioxide for every barrel of liquid 
fuel." Congressional supporters of coal-to-liquids argue that "coal-based 
fuels are more American than gasoline." But the only responsible way to 
achieve American energy independence is to create policies that also reduce 
global warming. That can be done with low-carbon, alternative transportation 
fuels, including American-grown biofuels.

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