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Bush's Climate Change Plan

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Submitted by shadoweyes on Fri, 2006-09-22 00:26

Bush is going to stop climate change! I don't know that he has yet admitted that humans are responsible for the massive atmospheric carbon increases which drives the greenhouse effect, but he has a plan to solve our problems.

Don't laugh yet, there will be plenty of time shortly.

Green Clipping's covers the story briefly with links to related press releases and a Congressional Budget Office report entitled "Evaluating the Role of Prices and R&D in Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions." (pdf, 31 pages)

The U.S. Department of Energy's "Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan" includes $3 billion for research into new technologies and recommends voluntary goals for reducing emissions and capturing carbon dioxide.

The CBO report apparently says that this plan is not the most effective way to accomplish the stated goals. I have only glanced at the summary - which ends with this:

The causes and consequences of climate change are global, and reductions in U.S. emissions alone would be unlikely to have a significant impact. Cost-effective mitigation policies would require coordinated international efforts and would involve overcoming institutional barriers to the diffusion of new technologies in developing countries, such as India and China. If a domestic carbonpricing program significantly increased the prices of U.S.-produced goods—and was not matched by efforts to reduce emissions in other countries—it could cause carbon-intensive industries to relocate to countries without similar restrictions, diminishing the environmental benefits of a domestic program.

Clearly, a policy solely involving voluntary emissions reductions and appropriating some R&D money (something he has promised in the past and then forgotten) is totally insufficient. We need good policy to go with R&D investment. In fact, at this point, we need policy more than we need R&D.