THE VULGAR LOGGER

Words and Deeds

George Bush seeks a new environmental profile in his second term in office

By Adrian Pohr

[This article published in: Die Zeit, 19/2005 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://zeus.zeit.de/text/2005/19us_umwelt.]




Bye-bye Kyoto, hello Enron, George W. Bush said in assuming office in 2000. American environmental policy swung away from Bill Clinton’s initial efforts to support international regulations on climate policy. Bush sent the Kyoto protocol to the dustbin. The environmentally damaging industries of the country (mining, oil, wood, coal, chemistry) are paid back for this luxuriant election campaign of $44 billion – with the gradual cutting of environmental protection.

However US presidents in their second period in office often focus more on their later profile in the history books than only on their lobby. They incline to a multilateralist attitude as “good men.”

Whether Bush can reject his environmental image of a vulgar logger after his reelection cannot be predicted. The signs that he sets are very unequivocal. A few weeks ago he successfully brought his proposal through the congress to drill for oil in a natural preserve area. For the environmental authority (EPA), he proposed a candidate praised across the parties. Compared to his predecessors, Johnson as a pure scientist will have a hard time gaining a hearing. The environmental authority has merely executive tasks; the directives come from the White House. The funds for the EPA were significantly reduced in the coming budget. According to calculations of a group of independent environmental experts, more than ten percent was cut from environmental protection programs while the whole budget was only cut one percent.

WORDS WITHOUT DEEDS

At least rhetorically the president took an environmentally friendly path. Late and half-heartedly the Bush administration admitted that carbon dioxide is the most important cause of climate change. Several times after his reelection, Bush even repeated the meaningless phrase “responsibility for environmental consciousness,” as in his State of the Union address. Will deeds follow the words? Rob Perks from the National Defense Council says on current environmental policy, Bush is “talking the talk but not walking the walk” – he talks without acting correspondingly.

The environmental initiatives of the Bush administration suggest a hardly new problem consciousness. The heart of republican environmental policy is the Clear Skies bill that should replace the Clean Air Act of 1970. For a long time, the democrats withheld their consent in the committee. Environmentalists and many representatives see "Clear Skies"as a weakening of the existing law. While fewer pollutants will be blown into the air, businesses are granted long extensions. The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide responsible for global warming is not considered in the bill.

The numbers are depressing. In 2000, the US contributed more than a fifth of all emitted greenhouse gases. These emissions will increase. With the Global Climate Change initiative, Bush presented an alternative to the rejected Kyoto protocol that aims at an 18 percent reduction of greenhouse gas intensity by 2012. The international community did not receive the initiative positively. One reason is that the emissions are set in relation to the gross domestic product that will rise on account of economic growth. The increase will be so great that total emissions in the US will grow 12 percent by 2012 as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change estimates. Dan Kowalzig from the NGO Friends of the Earth describes the initiative as “merely a camouflage to protect industry.”

Still the pressure on the president could grow. The environmental protection theme is not a high-ranking theme for most Americans. However their attitude is clear. According to surveys, three quarters of US citizens are for emission restrictions. Senators who voted hostile to the environment for a long time are increasingly supporting environmentally friendly legal initiatives. Many states have developed their own plans for protecting the atmosphere.

On the international level, one cannot complete dispute the US engagement for the environment. While it moves away from the Kyoto protocol but it still supports the UNFCCC, the convention of the United Nations on Climate Change.

“NOBLE RHETORIC INSTEAD OF BINDING AGREEMENTS”

Changes are marked out on the bilateral plane. When Bush came to Mainz emptied of people in February to meet German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, he had a little gift for the nature-loving host nation: a German-American action program on environmental policy. The two states will cooperate in five fields in the future: in cooperation with developing countries, frugal and efficient association with energy, modernization of national energy production, innovation and renewable energy.

High-ranking government officials like the Green environmental minister Juergen Tritten hope for a change of attitude in American environmental policy. Tritten described the program as the “clear confession of the US government to finally become active at home in protecting the atmosphere.” Politicians from the second tier see this differently. Reinhard Loske, environmental expert of the Greens, discovered in the action program “a moderate positive signal for protecting the atmosphere that was also very vague.” The program suits the diplomatic climate strategy of the Bush administration: bilateral and voluntary agreements with noble rhetoric instead of binding multilateral treaties like Kyoto, Loske said to Zeit.de. Michael Muller, acting chairperson of the SPD, criticized the informality of the program. The conduct of the US in environmental questions is generally “ecological colonialism.”

Observers of international environmental policy are also critical of the action program. Alexander Ochs from the Science and Politics foundation in Berlin does not see “any real concessions” of the US government. “The program at least offers the opportunity of demanding more concrete measures from the US,” he said. However in a pessimistic vein, the Americans could be playing a negotiating game as with the Kyoto protocol according to Ochs: “to downplay the goals, dilute and lengthen the process and then alight when the results are made known.”

No one must reorganize for the action program. Both sides bring their preferences: renewable energy and efficiency for the Germans and hydrogen and methane for the Americans. Controversial environmental themes like nuclear power or the very high per-capita energy consumption in the US were left out. While Americans did not make this very painful concession, the program turns out to be a clear technology initiative. In its environmental policy, the US concentrates mainly on the state promotion of technology firms while Europe prefers binding international treaties that must be implemented nationally.

In the course of the revival of transatlantic relations, the Americans are ready for concessions. Germany and Tony Blair want to reach Bush with this signal. Blair seeks to bind Americans to atmospheric policy in the scope of the G8 states. However deeds must follow the rhetoric – even faltering deeds. Bush and Schroeder are not zealous about implementing the action program. One only hears from the German chancellor office that “intensive discussions” have taken place for several weeks. This is not a good sign. High-ranking American and German politicians met already in 1975 and 2002 to start similar pioneering programs. Both times the programs quickly disappeared in the drawers.