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Bush feels heat over emissions
19/01/2007 13:42 - (SA)
Washington - The battle over global warming is heating up, with President George W Bush refusing to limit greenhouse gas emissions despite growing pressure from the Democrat-led congress and around the world.
White House spokesperson Tony Snow earlier this week said Bush's position on greenhouse gases remained unchanged, no matter what was reported by Britain's The Observer weekly.
The publication quoted an unnamed top official with Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration saying that Bush was preparing to announce a major climate policy change in his state of the union address on January 23.
"It's not accurate," Snow said at one of his daily press briefings.
"If you are talking about enforceable carbon caps, in terms of industry-wide and nation-wide, we knocked that down. That's not something we're talking about," he stressed.
"Look, we'll have a state of the union address in a week and we'll lay out our policy on global warming," he told reporters referring to the president's annual speech before congress.
'America is addicted to oil'
In his 2006 state of the union address, Bush implicitly acknowledged the United States' contribution to global warming: "we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil," he said.
The United States imports 65% of the crude oil it burns in its cars, planes, power plants and sundry devices and spews forth one quarter of all greenhouse gases in the world considered a major component of global warming.
But Bush has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that entered into force in February 2005 with the purpose of limiting global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), deeming it too costly for the US economy and of no practical use since major polluting developing nations such as China and India are not bound by it.
Instead, Bush insists on a voluntary approach to cutting greenhouse gases and has sponsored initiatives encouraging the development of alternative fuels such as ethanol.
- AFP
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