The GOP Loves Its Elephants

The Bush administration's stance on the Middle East is amazingly similar to its stance on the other elephant in the living room, the other elephant it refuses to deal with in any sane and effective fashion: global climate change and what we, as the largest contributor to its causes, can do about it. Blue Voicer Bruce Miller writes almost daily on the subject of that first pachyderm, and I hope to soon find time to do more frequent posting on the second.

With John Howard's ousting as Prime Minister of Australia last month, Bush lost his best international ally in the refusal to tackle climate change. The new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, wasted no time this week in keeping his campaign promise to sign the Kyoto Protocol, something Howard had joined Bush in rejecting. The US now stands as the only wealthy industrialized nation refusing to sign on to the Kyoto agreement.

The rest of the world remains deeply concerned,and representatives from over 180 countries are meeting in Bali for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The purpose of the two-week meeting is posed as follows:

What is needed is a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for a future international agreement on enhanced global action to fight climate change in the period after 2012, the year the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. The main goal of the Bali Conference is threefold: to launch negotiations on a climate change deal for the post-2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations and to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded.

Bush appears determined to adhere to his Lone Ranger policy as this climate summit takes shape in Bali, remaining opposed to international constraints on curbing carbon emissions despite growing international isolation. His stated opposition is that such constraints would curb economic growth and "cripple the US economy." Such opposition shows that he is only listening to the oil/coal/gas energy lobbyists and others with big stakes in maintaining such opposition. There is plenty of evidence from other sources to show that more jobs will be lost, more economic harm be done, by the effects of global climate change than by by unified mandated curbing of carbon emissions. This article from the ENN reporter at the Bali conference, Silver Lining to Climate Change - Green Jobs, cites the preliminary draft of a report titled: Green Jobs: Can the Transition to Environmental Sustainability Spur New Kinds and Higher Levels of Employment? The report was commissioned by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) in groundbreaking partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). The final report won't be available until next spring, but some of the very hopeful highlights from the draft are listed in the ENN article.We desperately need a forward-looking administration to be elected into the White House and begin to "respond to climate change...as a major impulse for innovation and efficiency gains."

Technorati Tags: Bali Climate Crisis Summit, Bush administration, global climate change, green jobs, Kyoto Protocol,

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