Fighting a Rearguard Action

The Bush administration has been masterful at derailing efforts to fight global warming. At first it said the GHG/global warming link wasn't proven. For years George Bush would deflect environmentalists by repeating that the "science wasn't in." To bolster his position the administration took steps to defang reports from the government's own scientists.

Now the White House has exhausted that line of defence and has admitted that climate change (not "global warming" mind you) is happening and that it's linked to human activity. A lot of us thought that was a terrific breakthrough, heralding a reversal of the president's policies but it seems we were wrong.

Even as Bush was forced to abandon his main line of defence, he fell back on an alternate, "so what?"

John Reilly, associate director of research at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change says the White House isn't giving in, "saying that climate change is almost certainly occurring and it's almost certainly due to human activity is different than saying the impact of climate change is so bad that we need to do something right away."

With any luck, this should allow Bush to avoid carbon caps and other measures to fight global warming for the remainder of his term in office. He will be isolated on this issue from a hostile congress, the American people and the international community. But that's really not much different from his defiance of these same parties on his war in Iraq.

However there may be problems looming for Bush (and potentially for us too) on the other side of the Atlantic.

French President Jacques Chirac has demanded the US sign the Kyoto protocol and the follow-up agreement or else face "carbon taxes" on its exports to the European Union. The EU is America's largest export market other than Canada.

"A carbon tax is inevitable,” Mr. Chirac said. “If it is European, and I believe it will be European, then it will all the same have a certain influence because it means that all the countries that do not accept the minimum obligations will be obliged to pay.”

Trade lawyers have been divided over the legality of a carbon tax, with some saying it would run counter to international trade rules. But Mr. Chirac said other European countries would back it. “I believe we will have all of the European Union,” he said.