President Shows Up Late, Comes Up Short on Global Warming

WASHINGTON (May 31, 2007) – The vague, voluntary global warming goal announced today by President Bush confirms again that the administration continues to lag far behind leading American businesses and a growing list of leaders in both political parties that are pressing for concrete legal limits to cut global warming pollution according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

 

Indeed, three of the world’s top oil companies have called for stricter performance standards than the soft objectives put forth by the White House today.

 

“The president is warming up to throw his opening pitch while business, states and the rest of the world are already at the top of the ninth inning,” said NRDC Climate Center Policy Director and former climate treaty negotiator David Doniger. “It is nothing less than embarrassing that three of the worlds biggest oil companies are calling for tougher measure than the White House.”

 

BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell have all joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an unprecedented coalition of leading corporations and environmental organizations including NRDC that are calling on Congress and the President to pass binding legal limits on heat-trapping pollution, along with a market-based system that cuts costs and rewards quick action. (See www.us-cap.org.)

 

“It’s too late to slide by on vague calls for unenforceable long-term goals,” Doniger said. “The president will have no credibility with the countries he wants to bring to the table unless he is committed to specific limits to cap and cut our own global warming pollution. Otherwise, his speech today is nothing more than an effort to derail the G-8 and to look busy for the remainder of his term.”