posted by Damozel | Poor thing, he can't please anyone. Now that he finally got around to reading the secret Pentagon report! [ Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us, The Guardian (22 February 2004)], all those Europeans who "for six years have pleaded with President Bush to seize the initiative in the campaign against global warming" are now "even more frustrated" [Bush's Climate Change Plan Alters Showdown with Europe, The New York Times (1 June 2007)]
Hey, he's trying to get his head round it, okay? Baby steps, people!
After all, it was only a few months ago "that the U.S, denied a British newspaper report that President George W. Bush was preparing to announce a dramatic policy shift on global warming in his State of the Union speech this month" [U.S. denies British rumors on Bush climate change, The Washington Post (14 January 2007)].
But then he surprised and gratified us all: by saying "a couple of dozen words out of more than 5000, uttered so fast that the audience missed them at the first time in Bush's six years in office that he mentioned the issue in a State of the Union. And he did it while presenting a high-profile plan to cut gasoline consumption -- and with it, greenhouse gases" [Bush Climate Remarks Weighed for Policy Shift, The Washington Post ( 27, January 2007)].
But even before any of that, in July 2006 when people were still accusing him of indifference and denial, the White House issued this statement "setting the record straight.:" [ President Bush's Strong Record of Addressing Climate Change (11 July 2006).] (My environmental warrior friend, Julie: "He's addressed it all right. He's daying, "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I don't heeeeear you!" Those Green Party types: so humorless.)
And now that he's doing his best to take an interest, they're all being so mean to him that he'll probably just give up and go back to insisting that climate change is just a natural phenomenon, or whatever it was he used to think before. [ I've never really been that clear about it, frankly, except he didn't think the risk was sufficiently scientifically demonstrated to require any immediate action that might interfere with industry.]
He wants the Europeans to know he's coming around. And yet: little praise and no love..
[quote begins from Mark :Landler, Bush's Climate Change Plan Alters Showdown with Europe, The New York Times (1 June 2007)]
Mr. Bush’s unexpected announcement Thursday that the United States would gather together the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases to seek a long-term global reduction in emissions has thrown Washington’s European allies, particularly Germany, off balance....
[The German Chancellor's Environmental Minister] environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, warned that Mr. Bush’s plan might prove to be a “Trojan horse,” impeding her efforts to get an agreement on deep reduction targets in Germany, while defusing criticism that the United States is a hurdle to the broader climate effort. ...
Mrs. Merkel, supported by Prime Minister Tony Blair and other European leaders, wants to set a global target to cut emissions by 50 percent, from 1990 levels, by 2050. In a draft communiqué for the meeting, German negotiators also propose increasing energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020.
The Chancellor's Chief Climate Change Advisor did offer some cautious words of optimism.
[quote begins from Mark :Landler, Bush's Climate Change Plan Alters Showdown with Europe, The New York Times (1 June 2007)]
“It’s clearly an indication that the Bush administration wants to contribute to solving the problem,” Mr. Schellnhuber said in an interview. “It’s a steep learning curve, and when you are on a learning curve, you may not come up with the right solution the first time.
[quote ends]
See there? It's a learning curve issue. Moreover, this climate change expert thought a plan similar to Bush's might be a workable "Plan B" if they couldn't get an agreement on "Plan A."
[quote begins from Mark :Landler, Bush's Climate Change Plan Alters Showdown with Europe, The New York Times (1 June 2007)]
“I said to the chancellor, ‘If we cannot get a concrete, top-down approach, the second-best solution is a bottom-up approach, with mid-term commitments by countries,’” he said. “But you need a system for adding this up, and orienting it to a larger goal that makes sense.”
This is where Europe parts company with the United States, Mr. Schellnhuber said. The Bush administration favors a piecemeal approach, in which countries would set their own targets for cutting emissions, based on their economic circumstances. But it continues to oppose mandatory caps on emissions, or a carbon trading regime, like that operating in Europe....
Negotiators for the White House wrote last week that the German draft proposal “crosses multiple ‘red lines’ of what we simply cannot agree to,” adding, “we have tried to ‘tread lightly,’ but there is only so far we can go, given our fundamental opposition to the German position.”
[quote ends]
Which "bluntly worded rebuff angered the Germans," who also--clearly--can't take a joke. "“The U.S. and Europe were like two cars racing toward each other in a game of chicken,"" said Mr, um,. S.
But it's not just the Germans.
Here's the European Union's Enivronment Czar (he's really the Environmment Commissioner, but like every freeborn American, I prefer "Czar"):
[quote begins from Yahoo News, (1 June 2007), Bush Climate Plan "The Classic U.S. Line"]
"The declaration by President Bush basically restates the U.S. classic line on climate change -- no mandatory reductions, no carbon trading and vaguely expressed objectives," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said, according to his spokeswoman.
"The U.S. approach has proven to be ineffective in reducing emissions," Dimas added of Bush's call on Thursday for 15 major countries to agree by 2008 on a long-term goal for cutting emissions.
Do these Europeans really expect Bush to let the Germans tell us what to do?
Do they think we're going to let that stand? As Al Gore---who taught most of us everything we know about climate change-- has recently explained, reason has been under assault in this country for years and Americans are at the point where nearly all our decisions are emotional.. This is true.
When I read about Europeans bashing my president's plan, I start to feel just like a Republican. If that's how it is, we'll just GO ON emitting carbons and then they'll see. Who are they to tell us to etc.?
Sadly, Bush isn't getting much love from the American press either and only very faint praise.
Here's The New York Times:
[quote begins from Playing to the Crowd: Talk About Warming, The New York Times (editorial) (1 June 2007)]
Given Mr. Bush’s history of denial and obstructionism when it comes to climate change, there are good reasons to be cynical about this sudden enthusiasm, coming as it does on the eve of the meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations.
Most of these nations — and in particular the meeting’s host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — were deeply offended by the administration’s rude rejection of Mrs. Merkel’s proposal for deep, mandatory cuts in emissions by midcentury....
[H]is spokesmen made clear that he remains as hostile as ever to most of the mechanisms associated with the 1997 Kyoto accord, which included a firm if modest cap on emissions. Many European leaders are still bristling over Condoleezza Rice’s 2001 declaration that the treaty was “dead on arrival.”
[quote ends]
Though the editorial does AT L;EAST concede that " As rhetoric, some of what Mr. Bush had to say was different and heartening."
If only we could all maintain this sort of optimism! Dan Froomkin in his "White House Watch" column at The Washington Post: mustered a number of reactions to Bush's plan in Europe, in which I found little of even faint praise for Bush's efforts and much disheartening cynicism concerning Bush's motives. He starts by accusing the American press of a certain guilessness in its reporting of this policy shift or "shift."
[Dan Froomkin, Bush's Climate Change Feint, The Washington Post (1 June 2007)]
The White House yesterday showed that it still knows how to play the American press like a harp.
President Bush yesterday put forth a new proposal on climate change that is most newsworthy for its attempt to muddy the debate about the issue and derail European and U.N. plans for strict caps on emissions. Bush's proposal calls for a new round of international meetings that would nearly outlast his presidency. The purpose of the meetings would not be to set caps on emissions, but to establish what the White House -- uncorking a bold new euphemism -- calls "aspirational goals."....
But a change in rhetoric was enough to generate some headlines about the administration's attention to the issue: Bush Proposes Goals on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, reads the New York Times headline. Bush Proposes Talks on Warming, says The Washington Post's front page. Bush offers to take climate lead, proclaims the Los Angeles Times.
[quote ends; links in original]
So Froomkin proposes that we look to the English---who we all know are the next thing to being Europeans even though the real Europeans know they really aren't--- for "a more pointed view." He even quotes from this article [Bush Sidesteps G8 Climate Change Agenda, The Independent (1 June 2007)] by Stephen Cornwell, this article [Bush Kills Off Hope for G8 Climate Change Plan, The Guardian ( 1 June 2007)] by Julian Borger, David Alan, and Suzanne Goldenberg, this photo of Bush in The Guardian is a definite bonus). He even quotes actual Europeans from Brussels, as if we didn't all know what they think of Bush.
Furthermore, after basically arguing that the American press is generously prepared to believe the best it can of the president (as is only right), he then cites a number of scurrilous scallawags of skepticism such as "spin resistant" Dana Milbank).
John McQuaid at The Huffington Post: was of very much the same mind :
[quote begins from The Huffington Post, John McQuaid, Bush and Climate Change: Rendezvous with History! (1 June 2007)]
Ignore the headlines. These big announcements by the Bush administration are never what they seem. They aren't proposals in the ordinary sense ("Let's do this!") but puzzle boxes of political/strategic dysfunction. They don't even deserve cynicism anymore; cynicism would be merited if the White House were actually going to accomplish some nefarious goal. It isn't.
On one level, yesterday's proposal is a bid to get control of the climate change debate, as David Roberts notes in Grist.org -- in this case, to literally control it by putting the United States in charge of the global talks. But the United States has no credibility on this issue, thanks to Bush himself, so (at least right now) we cannot pretend to lead or dictate to other nations what they should do. On another level, the Bush climate agenda is larded with breaks for traditional business interests - nuclear power, coal, et al -- that are hardly in the forefront of sound global climate policy.
[quote ends]
All of which you have to admit is pretty harsh, given that the man is trying to do better. Furthermore, it's disrespectful. Who, after all, is President of the United States, Bush or them?
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