Is it possible to have a healthy economy and substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Presidential candidate George Bush told the “Houston Chronicle” (September 1) he is against ratifying the Kyoto Protocol because, “It’s going to cost the U.S. jobs. … I also don’t appreciate the fact the United States bears the brunt of the goal of Kyoto
while developing nations are really excluded from cleaning up the environment … It’s a bad deal for America and Americans.”
Data is accumulating which shows the opposite. A new study from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change shows that increasing the use of natural gas and renewable sources of energy, as well as energy efficiency in developing countries can significantly reduce emissions while spurring growth.
And, as we reported in last month’s Briefs, the U.S. Energy Information Administration found that despite economic growth of almost four percent, U.S. CO2 emissions rose only .4 percent in 1998, the smallest increase since 1991. Since then, Worldwatch released a fairly dramatic finding: For the first time since 1993, global carbon emissions of carbon fell by 0.5 percent to 6.32 billion tons.
At the same time, the world economy expanded by 2.5 percent. This, according to Christopher Lavin, author of the report,
“suggests an accelerated “de-linking” of economic expansion from carbon emissions, undercutting arguments that reducing emissions will damage the economy. In the preceding two years, the global economy grew by 6.8 percent and emissions were steady. Decreasing coal use and improved energy efficiency are two of the reasons for this decline. Also, resource-intensive sectors are growing very slowly compared to information technology and services.
Also in August, the Tellus Institute and World Wildlife Fund released a comprehensive report that specifies how global warming policies can lead to enormous economic growth. By aggressively promoting and removing barriers to energy efficiency and renewable energy, the U.S. has the potential to save $43 billion a year while creating more than 870,000 new jobs by 2010 (and there have been similar findings for Europe). In fact, U.S. emissions would be reduced by twice the amount – 14 percent – as is required under the Kyoto Protocol.
PEW Study: http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/pol_countries.html
http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/990727.html
Read the full report, “America’s Global Warming Solutions”
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