Responding to Skeptics of US Global Warming Policy: Why Did the US Abandon Kyoto

February 13, 2005 – Vol.9 No.47

RESPONDING TO SKEPTICS OF U.S. GLOBAL WARMING POLICY: WHY DID THE U.S. ABANDON KYOTO?

In the same way that scientists respond to climate change skeptics by countering with detailed study and research, those who are skeptical of U.S. policies towards climate change should begin asking pertinent questions - and demanding answers.

For instance, the Bush Administration believes that government policies to mitigate climate change would damage the U.S. economy. But what about countries that will be damaged economically by climate change itself? How are they expected to cope?

And, if policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions were enacted by the U.S., exactly how would the economy damaged? Presumably job loss would be included in possible economic damage, but whose jobs and why? The administration has to be more specific as to what kinds of jobs would be lost and in what sectors.

Further, if the Administration thought job losses would be expected, what possibilities are available to counter those losses? For example, job creation is expected in the development and adoption of clean technologies. Won’t they counter balance jobs lost elsewhere?

The Bush Administration claims it is supporting those clean technologies - specifically a hydrogen economy and hydrogen fuel cells - as a way to tackle the global warming problem.

However if it wants to build a hydrogen economy where is it? Where’s the major national effort to build it?

True, fuel cells aren’t anywhere near full commercialization (tens of millions produced each year) but there’s no time like the present to begin steps to build a hydrogen infrastructure to fuel them.

That infrastructure could begin with sources of energy needed to generate hydrogen as a truly emission-free carrier of energy. That is, renewable energy capacity could be built today with the intention of generating hydrogen at some future date.

(The idea that hydrogen would be extracted from natural gas (the least expensive way) seems misguided. Not only would that method put more pressure on already strained natural gas supplies - increasing the need for expensive imports - the method would still leave greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere. A hydrogen economy that uses natural gas as a source of hydrogen isn’t hydrogen economy, it’s a natural gas economy.)

In other words an infrastructure to supply renewable hydrogen could be built today, put to work supplying green power to the grid, then later when hydrogen is needed to supply fuel cell vehicles, it would already be in place.

If climate change skeptics can ask questions and get answers, skeptics of U.S. policy towards towards climate change deserve answers too.