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Do the Math: White House Global
Warming Plan Cooks the Books
CO2 Pollution Would
Continue Increasing at Same Rate as Past Decade Enron-Style
Accounting Trick Hides Growing Damage Behind Veil of Progress
WASHINGTON (February 14, 2002) - The global warming plan
announced by President Bush today uses a brazen accounting
trick to mask the fact that -- even if his voluntary emissions
targets are actually achieved -- heat-trapping carbon dioxide
pollution would keep increasing at almost exactly the same
rate it has for the past 10 years, according to analysis by
NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council).
Based on the president's own projections, emissions would
increase 14 percent over the next ten years, which is
precisely the rate at which they grew during the last ten
years -- a fact obscured by the plan's foggy accounting
tactics.
The president's non-binding goal is to reduce "emissions
intensity" (carbon dioxide pollution relative to economic
output) by 18 percent over the next 10 years. Yet from 1990 to
2000, emissions intensity fell 17.4 percent. That's because
economic growth already tends to outpace carbon dioxide
increases, and has for several decades. But it still allows
unsafe emissions growth to proceed unabated.
"The president's plan uses Enron-style accounting tricks to
hide growing environmental losses behind fuzzy pollution
numbers," said David G. Hawkins, director of the NRDC Climate
Center. "The benchmark for global warming policy is whether it
cuts global warming pollution. This plan calls for more
pollution growth, at the same dangerous pace as the past
decade."
A White House fact sheet claims the Bush target is similar
to the global warming targets of the rest of the world. In
fact, the new plan would result in U.S. emissions 30 percent
above 1990 levels in 2012. Meanwhile, the rest of the
industrialized world has committed to reduce emissions to near
1990 levels under the global warming treaty abandoned by the
White House last year.
Rollback of Power Plant Pollution Rules
The
president also announced new targets for three pollutants from
U.S. power plants that would delay by up to 10 years
life-saving emission cuts now required under the Clean Air
Act. The Bush plan allows three times more toxic mercury
emissions than current law would allow, and postpones
forthcoming mercury limits by a decade. It would allow 50
percent more sulfur emissions -- which cause acid rain and
premature death from respiratory disease -- than current law
and push back clean-up standards from 2012 to 2018. It would
also allow hundreds of thousands tons of additional
smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution, and delay their
clean-up for a decade beyond current requirements.
"Delaying cleanup of these plants will cause more asthma
attacks and more cardio pulmonary disease for thousands of
Americans. And we will see thousands more premature deaths,"
John Walke, director of NRDC's Clean Air program said.
Cost Effective Solutions At Hand
Global warming
and power plant pollution problems can be solved safely and
effectively, with cleaner more efficient energy technologies
-- using both conventional fuels and renewable sources like
wind and solar power. Legislation to clean up power plants and
raise fuel economy standards, both opposed by the
administration would stop U.S. global warming emissions growth
completely within 10 years.
The U.S. Senate is currently considering the Clean Power
Act, introduced by Senator Jeffords (D-VT), which would limit
all four major pollutants from power plants (carbon dioxide,
mercury, sulfur and nitrogen) further and faster than the Bush
plan, saving thousands of lives and countless hospital visits.
Now before the Environment committee, the bill has bipartisan
support of 19 co-sponsors.
Truth in Accounting
The administration plan calls
for a voluntary emissions intensity target of 151 metric tons
per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2012,
compared with 183 metric tons today -- a 17.5 percent gain.
White House press materials round up to 18 percent. Using the
administration's own economic growth forecasts, that
translates into a 14 percent increase in global warming
pollution over the next 10 years. Both the intensity and the
absolute pollution increase will be the same over the next
decade as they have been for the last 10 years.
The Global Warming Threat
The National Academy of
Sciences last year warned that global warming could trigger
"large, abrupt and unwelcome" changes in our climate. The
2,500-member Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says
average earth temperatures could rise as much as 10 degrees
over the next century, the fastest rate in 10,000 years.
Announcing that 2001 was the second hottest year on record,
the World Meteorological Organization recently confirmed that
"temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter
faster now than at any time in the past."
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a
national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and
environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public
health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more
than 500,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New
York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Related NRDC Pages
Reported
"Reductions," Rising Emissions
The
Clean Power Act: A Comprehensive Solution to Power-Plant
Pollution