President Bush's voluntary global warming plan announced on February 14 will let emissions of heat-trapping pollutants continue growing indefinitely at exactly the same rate they have grown over the last 10 years. The president's "clear skies" proposal, announced at the same time, would actually weaken and delay the clean up of other power plant pollutants compared to requirements under the existing Clean Air Act. In both cases, the president has used deceptive accounting and false comparisons to disguise more pollution, not less.

Global Warming

The president's global warming plan uses a brazen accounting trick to mask the fact that -- even if his completely voluntary emissions target is actually achieved -- emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants would increase by 14 percent over the next 10 years, almost exactly the same rate they increased over the last decade.

• In the decade from 1990-2000, U.S. emissions intensity (defined as the ratio of total global warming pollution to total gross domestic product) decreased by 17.4 percent. But that did not reduce our emissions. Over the decade, the U.S. economy grew by nearly 40 percent, and our global warming emissions grew by 14 percent.
  
  
• The new Bush plan simply calls for continuing the status quo. It sets a completely voluntary target of maintaining exactly the same rate of improvement in emissions intensity -- another 17.5 percent reduction by 2012. (The plan sets a target of reducing from today's level of 183 metric tons of global warming pollution per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) to 151 metric tons by 2012 -- a 17.5 percent change -- and then rounds this number up to 18 percent.)
  
  
• However, over the same period, the Bush plan forecasts another 38 percent increase in GDP. So emissions will increase once again by 14 percent from 2002 to 2012 -- the same percentage as the last decade.
  
  
• Bottom line: Under the new Bush plan emissions in 2012 will be 30 percent above 1990 levels and still rising.

President Bush's climate plan repudiates not only the Kyoto Protocol, but also the Rio global warming treaty (the Framework Convention on Climate Change) that was negotiated and signed by his father, George H.W. Bush, and ratified by the United States Senate in 1992. The Rio treaty, which remains the law of the land, established the target of reducing the global warming emissions of industrial nations to 1990 levels. Under President Bush's climate plan, U.S. emissions will be 30 percent over the Rio target by 2012, and still climbing.

President Bush professed still to honor what the Rio Treaty calls its "ultimate objective" -- to keep the concentration of global warming gases in the atmosphere from reaching dangerous levels. But because global warming gases last in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, each year's new emissions add to the previous emissions and drive atmospheric concentrations ever higher.

• Unless emissions are actually reduced, atmospheric concentrations of global warming gases will keep rising indefinitely.
  
  
• Higher concentrations mean ever greater danger. The National Academy of Sciences -- in a report requested by the president -- warned that "...risk increases with increases in both the rate and the magnitude of climate change."

The United States has tried a range of domestic and international voluntary efforts to reduce global warming pollution over the past decade, but U.S. emissions have continued to rise. The fact is voluntary programs alone will not stop the rise in emissions. Because the Bush global warming plan relies exclusively on voluntary programs, it won't work either.

The president proposes a voluntary registry for companies that have reduced their global warming emissions, with the promise of "credit" for those reductions in any future mandatory program. The fact is that companies are already able to report emission reductions to a registry maintained by the Department of Energy under section 1605(b) of the 1992 Energy Policy Act.

• Because companies report only if they want to, and because they can pick and choose what part of their operations they report on, it is no surprise that the registry is filled with glowing claims of progress.
  
  
• In 1999 the 1605b registry received approximately 100 reports from firms in the electric power sector claiming total reductions from emission reduction projects equivalent to 123 million tons of CO₂
  
  
• But what counts is overall emissions. Despite these claims, total emissions from power plants in 2000 were 25 percent higher than in 1990. ¹

President Bush continues to cite uncertainty in the science of global warming to justify not reducing emissions. That proposition was refuted last year by the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by the president himself. The National Academy concluded: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes are also a reflection of natural variability."

• Another National Academy of Sciences report last year warned that global warming could trigger "large, abrupt and unwelcome" changes in our climate.
  
  
• The 2,500-member Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says average earth temperatures could rise as much as 10 degrees over the next century, the fastest rate in 10,000 years. ²
  
  
• Announcing that 2001 was the second hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization recently confirmed that "temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter faster now than at any time in the past." ³

The administration's climate plan proposes $4.5 billion for fiscal year 2003 in total climate spending and claims an increase of $700 million over FY 2002. Yet most of the president's proposed spending is only a continuation of past work on the science of climate change. The increases are slated mainly for research on "sequestering" carbon on farms and in forests -- a strategy that could substitute temporary CO₂ "sinks" for necessary cuts in fossil fuel emissions. Astonishingly, the plan actually reduces investment in developing new renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

• The Bush plan proposes $7.1 billion in tax incentives for alternative sources of energy over ten years, $2.2 billion less than proposed by the Clinton administration.
  
  
• Meanwhile the Bush budget would cut federal R&D for energy efficiency by $52 million.
  
  
• The Bush administration has endorsed the House energy bill (H.R. 4), which shovels $17.3 billion in new subsidies at the fossil fuel industry over the next ten years.

Power Plant Pollution

The President also announced new targets for three pollutants from U.S. power plants: sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides. But his targets are weaker than those already required by the Clean Air Act. Compared to current law, the Bush plan allows three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The administration plan would delay compliance with even these weak standards by up to a decade longer than would be allowed under current law. (see chart).

• For mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- proper application of current law would reduce emissions from 47 tons per-year today to 5 tons per year by 2008. By comparison, the Bush plan aims for 15 tons per year by 2018 -- ten years later and three times more.
  
  
• For sulfur dioxide (SO₂) -- which causes acid rain and thousands of premature deaths from respiratory disease -- the Bush plan calls for a 3 million ton emissions cap in 2018. In contrast, last September the Environmental Protection Agency sought an SO₂ cap of two million tons by 2010.
  
  
• For nitrogen oxide (NO_X) -- which causes lung-damaging ozone smog -- the Bush plan would reduce emissions to 1.7 million tons by 2018. In contrast, EPA sought a NO_X cap of 1.25 million tons by 2012.

By leaving CO₂ out of his power plant plan, the president gives a green light for another generation of investments in power plants that ignore global warming -- missing the chance to make a single set of integrated plans for the future of the power sector.

• Even utility executives know that we won't be able to ignore CO₂ indefinitely. That's why there is growing acknowledgement even in the industry that power plant legislation must address CO₂.
  
  
• Recognizing this reality, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to take up the Clean Power Act (S.556) this spring, which will address all four power plant pollutants in an integrated fashion.

SO₂: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce SO₂ pollution from power plants from today's 11 million tons to 2 million tons by 2012. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow 50 percent more SO₂ pollution for 50 percent longer. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 4.5, then 3 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (2 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would reach 2 million tons by 2012. The 2018 date for SO₂ reductions means tens of thousands more avoidable premature deaths from fine particle exposures compared to what the current Clean Air Act would allow, and even more premature deaths compared to the Jeffords-Lieberman bill (the Clean Power Act) that would achieve cleanup by 2007.

NO_X: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce NO_X pollution from power plants from today's 5 million tons to 1.25 million tons by 2010. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow hundreds of thousands more tons of NO_X pollution for close to a decade longer than today's law allows. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 2.1, then 1.7 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (1.25 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would achieve far cleaner air by 2010.

Mercury: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce mercury pollution from power plants from today's 48 tons to 15 tons by 2008. Environmentalists are more confident in the state of American technology and believe mercury pollution can be reduced to 5 tons by 2008 under current law. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow dramatically higher levels of mercury pollution, and allows cleanup to be avoided for 10 years longer than the current Clean Air Act mandates. The administration approach would allow higher mercury pollution levels (first 26, then 15 tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (from 5 to 15 tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act requires cleanup by 2008.

Notes

1. E/EIA, Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States: 2000.

2. PCC, 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press.

3. WMO Press Release December 18, 2001;

4. Source: EPA, Discussion of Multi-Pollutant Strategy, Meeting with Edison Electric Institute (September 18, 2001).