A Strong Climate Plan

Monday, Aug. 26, 2002 By CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Article Tools
Print
Reprints
Sphere
RSS

(2 of 2)
The President's policy also provides new resources to curb greenhouse-gas emissions right now. The budget earmarks $4.6 billion over the next five years in tax credits for renewable-energy investments such as wind and solar power and energy-efficiency projects. The President has asked the Department of Energy to develop new transferable credits for individuals or businesses that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, providing an incentive for early reductions and ensuring their verifiability. Supporting international efforts, the President's budget provides $178 million for the Global Environment Facility--which finances projects to bring clean energy and other environmental technologies to the developing world--and $205 million for U.S. Agency for International Development climate-change programs, including $50 million for tropical-forest conservation.

Despite this unprecedented effort, partisan critics still lament the President's refusal to support the Kyoto Protocol--forgetting that the Senate voted 95 to 0 against Kyoto's principles in 1997. It's worth remembering why: Kyoto would put millions of Americans out of work for the sake of meeting unrealistic targets that would have a negligible effect. The developing world, which will soon account for the majority of all greenhouse-gas emissions, has no obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Even the industrialized world isn't expected to make major reductions in its emissions; rather, it will simply buy credits for phantom emissions "reductions" caused largely by the collapse of Eastern European economies.

America is more engaged than ever before in meeting the challenge of climate change with smart policies that guide concrete actions today and provide a long-term vision for progress in the years ahead.