Monday, November 09, 2009
Editorial: Inexcusable inaction on climate change
While Congress dithers, the world waits for the United States to show leadership.
From the RoundTable blog
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After Barack Obama was elected president last year, there was hope around the world that the U.S. might finally assume a leadership position in the fight against global warming. But when the U.N. Climate Congress convenes in Copenhagen next month, delegates from the United States will have no commitment to announce.
The fault lies not with Obama, but with a Democratic Congress that couldn't pass climate legislation in time to demonstrate the United States is taking the threat seriously and is ready to be a global leader on this most pressing of issues.
Some progress is being made on cap-and-trade legislation to reduce carbon emissions, but even though the U.S. House passed its bill in June, the Senate version is still working its way through committees -- facing Republican recalcitrance and opposition from coal-state Democrats all along the way.
This failure could derail any global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"How can we expect other major players to move their position until they know that in the end the U.S. is also going to deliver?" asked Connie Hedegaard, chairwoman of the U.N. talks, in an interview with Bloomberg.com.
Crafting a global accord is an excruciatingly difficult proposition. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions without crippling the global economy will not be easy, and developing nations are especially unwilling to throttle back or move toward more expensive controls without firm commitments from nations that built current foundations of wealth on decades of unchecked pollution.
Some representatives of polluting industries and their supporters would like us all to believe that global warming isn't happening, that climate change isn't real -- or if it is, mankind is not responsible.
These people are simply wrong, and while they resist efforts to find a solution, the globe inches ever closer to disaster of a magnitude humans have never witnessed. Congress should act before it's too late.
If it already isn't.
