Accounting and Accountability

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Bush administration's voluntary program for reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions isn't working. Surprising, isn't it? Let me guess: It doesn't work for the same reason that voluntary mortgage payments don't work -- namely, human nature. In fact, the Bush plan was never credible, and while it's nice for that to be exposed here in the Washington Post, it's also sad that a government agency had to devote time to studying what was obvious in the first place.

Meanwhile, reports the Post:

Bush's senior environmental adviser, James L. Connaughton, told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, that the country does not have to regulate such pollutants because it is on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent relative to the gross domestic product by 2012.

This is the old GHG emissions intensity canard, which masks the fact that in absolute terms, emissions are still on track to increase, whereas scientists say we have to reduce emissions by a full 70 percent if we hope to pull back from the brink of a destabilized global climate. In other words, we're going the wrong direction.