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Bush v. the Climate
The Climate Cannot Wait
For Bush
but if Bush doesn't change, the climate will
7 June, 2001
Supporting documents:
1. Summary of IPCC 3rd
Assessment Report
2. G8 Environment Ministers Communique,
Trieste, Italy, 2-4 March, 2001
3. Bush's letter to Hagel, 13 March, 2001
4. White House press conference, 28 March,
2001
5. United States Unilateralism and the Kyoto Protocol,
CTBT and ABM Treaties: The Implications under International Law, Duncan
Currie, 9 June, 2001
6.
Summary of Bush/Cheney Task Force's Energy Policy
7.
Greenpeace Response to the Bush Energy Plan, May 2001
8. The Science of Climate Change, 17
May, 2001 Joint statement by world-wide science academies
Summary
Ratify Kyoto
With or Without the US
A world-wide storm
of protest
President George
W. Bush's announcement in late March that the United States was abandoning
the Kyoto Protocol was met by a storm of protest, both in the US and internationally.
Governments, scientists, religious leaders, labour and other public figures,
as well as environmental organisations, condemned the move. The US is seen
as abandoning its moral, political and legal responsibility to work internationally
to address the most pressing international environmental problem of the
21st century: global climate change.
President
Bush's upcoming visit to Europe, threatens to be marked by outrage at
the rejection by the world's worst greenhouse gas polluter of the last
12 years of international climate negotiations.
No
mandate to wreck the climate
Greenpeace believes that the Bush administration's isolationist policy
will ultimately fail, both domestically and internationally. The recent
defection of Senator James Jeffords of Vermont indicates the breadth of
opposition to Bush's rejection of Kyoto, his energy policy and the rest
of his hard core right wing agenda, even from moderates within his own
party. George Bush does not have a mandate from the American people or
the Congress to wreck the international climate negotiations. US public
opinion and the US Congress are moving inexorably in the right direction.
The White House will follow eventually.
Ratify the climate
treaty with or without the US
While this right wing
drama plays out in Washington, the rest of the world must not be distracted
from combating climate change, and the first step is the ratification
and entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol.
US alternative
no alternative
The United States' 'alternative', if it ever appears, is very likely to
be strong on rhetoric, but very weak on targets and timetables for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, and will try to postpone the hard choices to
a time in the future when they will no doubt be much harder and more expensive
to take and perhaps to a time when it is too late to reverse the damage
that we are doing to the world's climate system.
EU
must lead ratification and implementation of the climate treaty
Greenpeace urges the European Union to stand firm in the face of Bush's
posturing, and to recognise that the majority of the American people support
international action to protect the climate. Europe must show real leadership
and fulfil its promise to its own people to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
which must enter into force in time for the Rio+10 Summit in Johannesburg
in September of 2002. Failure to do so will be met with the harshest criticism
from the vast majority of Europeans who want to get on with the business
of preventing dangerous climate change.
The
EU must go on to implement the climate treaty in full, developing the
next steps within the convention for further and deeper cuts in greenhouse
gases, while waiting for signs that sanity is returning to Washington
and a time when the US can be welcomed back into the process.
Waiting
for Bush not an option
The Kyoto Protocol does not go far enough, it is true, but it was watered
down to its present text largely as a result of US demands and corporate
intervention. The EU and the rest of the world cannot wait until the political
climate in Washington improves, or expect some miraculous 'alternative'
from Washington. It will not come while the current administration lasts.
Waiting for Bush is not an option.
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