Posted: 06/07/2005
Bush Should Stay the Course at G-8
President Should Not Acquiesce on Climate Change Policy
DALLAS (June 7, 2005) – As President Bush meets this week with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and prepares for next month’s G-8 Summit in Scotland he should stay the course on global warming, according to scholars with the NCPA’s E-Team project.
“Kyoto is an expensive symbol,” said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. “After eight years and tens of millions of dollars spent, there has been little if any effect on the environment.”
Prime Minister Blair and other signatories are expected to push President Bush once more at the G-8 Summit to adopt Kyoto or acknowledge that global warming is a result of human activity. Wisely, the Bush Administration has charted a different course and for several reasons:
- Kyoto won’t help the environment. Swiftly developing economies, like China and India, are not obligated to cut emissions, even though they produce nearly half of all current greenhouse gas emissions and are forecast to produce as much as 85 percent of future emissions.
- According to Dallas Federal Reserve economist Stephen Brown, Kyoto’s emission cuts will reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) between 3.6 and 5.1 percent by 2010.
- The Department of Energy estimates that Kyoto will cause gasoline prices to rise by 52 percent and electricity prices to rise by 86 percent.
In addition, the Bush Administration has spent in excess of $6 billion per year, more than any other government, to create and promote technologies that will reduce emissions yet also promote economic growth, including:
- $700 million in tax credits to promote clean technologies.
- $3 billion in research on new clean technologies.
- $200 million to transfer clean technologies to developing countries.
“In the United States, industry is on course to meet the Bush Administration’s goal of reducing annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 1.5 percent per unit of GDP,” Burnett added, “and that’s more than can be said for most of the Kyoto signatory nations.”