by Joseph Biden
07-12-05
Mark Twain once joked: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does
anything about it."
But with the onset of global warming, it is time for action.
The scientific evidence is clear: man-made emissions are harming our planet.
Climate change will alter growing seasons, redistribute natural resources, lift
sea levels and shift other fundamental building blocks of economic, social and
political arrangements around the world.
With those shifts will come political conflict, migrating populations, the
spread of disease -- threats to international stability. Leaders from 189
nations are meeting in Montreal to discuss new plans for combating global
warming. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has decided to sit on the
sidelines while other countries determine where our global environmental policy
is headed.
Since 2001, President George W. Bush's policy on climate change has been to
go it alone. He withdrew the US from the Kyoto protocol to the United Nations
framework convention on climate change and left us out of discussions on its
implementation. Under the protocol, industrial nations committed to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 % below 1990 levels. The US is the
only big industrial nation that is not a signatory to this international
agreement.
The US should return to the international process of protecting our global
environment from climate change. This is not just about the environment; it is
also about our economic and national security.
The challenge to find cleaner, more efficient sources of energy offers us one
of the great opportunities of this new century. By moving us toward greater
energy independence, lowering our energy costs and promoting new products and
markets, a well-designed climate policy can create jobs and enhance economic
growth.
Time is not on our side when it comes to climate change. A group of
international researchers discovered there is more carbon dioxide, the gas that
fuels global warming, in the atmosphere today than at any point during the past
650,000 years.
The sources of greenhouse gas emissions are global. Meeting the challenge of
climate change will require an international response. That means we must
continue to talk with other nations about the weather. However, we need to make
sure that talk is not a substitute for action. The real question is: what kind
of talk will lead to action?
In November, I joined Dick Lugar, the Indiana Republican senator and chairman of
the Foreign Relations Committee, in calling on the Bush administration to return
the US to international negotiations on climate change. Our climate change
resolution would also establish a bipartisan Senate observer group to monitor
talks and ensure that our negotiators bring back agreements that all Americans
can support.
Without an international consensus, there is no way to stabilise global
greenhouse gases before irreparable harm is done. To undertake meaningful
reductions, countries need to know that their actions will not be undercut by
"free riders" who continue business as usual while they commit to change.
Building that trust will require commitments by all of the key players and
institutions to co-ordinate the actions of independent nations.
As the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US has a responsibility to take
action. Our refusal to even discuss the next steps beyond Kyoto is not
acceptable and gives other nations an excuse to maintain the status quo.
As the ice caps melt, sea levels rise and deserts grow, it is clear that we
must change course. We need to rethink the path forward to make room for the
very different histories and circumstances that countries bring to these talks.
That will require flexibility and openness on all sides.
But first, we need to get back to the negotiating table. Without US leadership
and participation, there is no way to stabilise global greenhouse gases before
irreparable harm is done.
The writer is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;
he and Richard Lugar (Republican), the committee's chairman, co-authored the
Lugar-Biden Climate Change Resolution urging the Bush administration to
participate in new climate negotiations.
Source: news.ft.com