An American Abdication
By NORBERT WALTER

RANKFURT ‹ At present there is much talk about the unparalleled strength of
the United States on the world stage. Yet at this very moment the most
powerful country in the world stands to forfeit much political capital,
moral authority and international good will by dragging its feet on the next
great global issue: the environment. Before long, the administration's
apparent unwillingness to take a leadership role ‹ or, at the very least, to
stop acting as a brake ‹ in fighting global environmental degradation will
threaten the very basis of the American supremacy that many now seem to
assume will last forever.

American authority is already in some danger as a result of the Bush
administration's decision to send a low-level delegation to the World Summit
on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg ‹ low-level, that is, relative to
America's share of both the world economy and global pollution. The absence
of President Bush from Johannesburg symbolizes this decline in authority.

In recent weeks, newspapers around the world have been dominated by
environmental headlines: In central Europe, flooding killed dozens,
displaced tens of thousands and caused billions of dollars in damages. In
South Asia, the United Nations reports a brown cloud of pollution that is
responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year from respiratory
disease. The pollution (80 percent man-made) also cuts sunlight penetration,
thus reducing rainfall, affecting agriculture and otherwise altering the
climate. Many other examples of environmental degradation, often related to
the warming of the atmosphere, could be cited. What they all have in common
is that they severely affect countries around the world and are fast
becoming a chief concern for people everywhere.

Nobody is suggesting that these disasters are directly linked to anything
the United States is doing. But when a country that emits 25 percent of the
world's greenhouse gases acts as an uninterested, sometimes hostile
bystander in the environmental debate, it looks like unbearable arrogance to
many people abroad.

The administration seems to believe it is merely an observer ‹ that
environmental issues are not its issues. But not doing anything amounts to
ignoring a key source of world tension, and no superpower that wants to
preserve its status can go on dismissing such a pivotal dimension of
political and economic ‹ if not existential ‹ conflict.

In my view, there is a clear-cut price to be paid for ignoring the views of
just about every other country in the world today. The United States is
jettisoning its hard-won moral and intellectual authority and perhaps the
strategic advantages that come with being a good steward of the
international political order. The United States may no longer be viewed as
a leader or reliable partner in policymaking: necessary, perhaps inevitable,
but not desirable, as it has been for decades. All of this because America's
current leaders are not willing to acknowledge the very real concerns of
many people about global environmental issues.

No one can expect the United States to provide any quick fixes, but one
would like to see America make a credible and sustained effort, along with
other countries, to address global environmental problems. This should
happen on two fronts. The first is at home in the United States, through
more environmentally friendly policies, for example greater fuel-efficiency
standards for cars and light trucks and better insulation for buildings. The
second is international, through a more cooperative approach to multilateral
attempts at safeguarding the environment. Simply rejecting international
treaties (like the Kyoto Protocol) then failing to offer a better proposal
cannot be an acceptable option for American policymakers.

Much of the world has come together to help the United States in the fight
against terrorism, out of the realization that a common threat can only be
beaten through a cooperative effort. It is high time for the United States,
metaphorically speaking, to get out of its oversized, gas-guzzling S.U.V. ‹
and join the rest of the world in doing more to combat global warming and
protecting the planet.

Norbert Walter is chief economist at Deutsche Bank Group.