Accelerating Off a Cliff?

Stats aren't available for 2005 yet, but the Energy Department reports that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reached an all-time high in 2004, rising at a rate nearly twice the annual average. Moreover, revised measurements show that 2003 had the second-highest output. 2005 is expected to continue the upward trend.

You may remember that, just two weeks earlier, in Montreal, Bush administration climate negotiator Harlan Watson was boasting that "the United States has done better in the first three years of the Bush Administration in addressing greenhouse gas emissions than the EU." What Mr. Watson failed to explain was that the temporary dip in U.S. emissions in 2001 and 2002 had absolutely nothing to do with Bush administration policies and everything to do with a slowdown in economic growth, due in part to the 9/11 attacks. Whereas Kyoto strives to reduce emissions to 5% below 1990 levels, U.S. emissions have risen 16 percent since 1990.

Unfortunately, news from the EU is not encouraging either. The Guardian reports that

A paper published next week suggests 10 of the 15 EU countries committed to reducing climate-change gases under the Kyoto agreement will fall short of their targets unless they take urgent action. Only the UK, Sweden and France are remotely on target, the Institute for Public Policy Research is expected to say, while Denmark, Ireland and Italy are up to 20% off target. Emissions are rising in 13 of the 15 countries.

News from the developing world is no better. Indeed, New Scientist reports that, between 1992 and 2002, emissions in China and India increased by 33% and 57% respectively.

There are some glimmerings of hope, of course. The fact that the U.S. economy grew faster than emissions suggests that American industry is becoming more carbon efficient. And in the Northeast, seven states have banned together to reduce their power plant emissions in a Kyoto-style pact.
Alas, it's hardly enough. Lord Rees, the president of the UK's Royal Society says the industrialized nations will have to cut emissions by at least 60% by 2050 in order to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at twice pre-industrial levels.

So far, says Chris Jones at the UK's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, it looks like "business as usual." As such, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we, as a planet, are moving in the wrong direction and that our collective foot is on the accelerator when we should be stepping on the brakes.