Bush Touts Meaningless Greenhouse Gas Targets While Making his Double-U-Turn on Climate

Readers of Climate Progress knew that “Bush’s astonishing U-turn on global warming,” predicted by Big Media, would be a Double-U Turn. And indeed Reuters now explains “The Bush administration has no plans to ease its opposition to national limits on greenhouse gas output.” The Wall Street Journal gives more detail (subs. req’d):

The president also damped speculation that his administration is exploring a major shift in global-warming policy and may soon embrace some kind of formal government-imposed limits. Though Mr. Bush did imply that a shift could happen in the unlikely event that the modest voluntary goals set by his administration to reduce so-called greenhouse-gas emissions were failing.

NOTE #1: It is time for the media to stop using the modifier “so-called” for greenhouse-gas emissions. Even scientific journals refer to carbon dioxide, methane, and the like as plain old greenhouse-gas emissions.

NOTE#2: If the WSJ calls an administration goal “modest,” it must be pretty darn modest — and in fact Bush’s voluntary “goals” are so modest that they don’t actually require anybody to do anything but continue the rate of growth of GDP and greenhouse gases that the country experienced before Bush became president — as explained by both World Resources Institute and the Pew Climate Center.

Still, Bush goes on to say:

“I put some targets out there and we’re meeting those targets,” Mr. Bush said. “But should we not meet the targets, then I said that the country ought to consider a cap and trade,” in emissions credits, he said.

Since Bush’s lame targets are virtually unmissable, this is one more reiteration of his opposition to carbon caps, which are the main strategy the rest of the industrialized world has adopted to address the climate problem.