GLENEAGLES G-8 SUMMIT PASSES WITHOUT MAJOR SHIFT IN US CLIMATE POLICY

For the past year many have anticipated that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's strong support of the war in Iraq, even at real cost to his standing with UK voters, would help produce some positive action by US President George W. Bush on climate change, an issue on which Blair has been the most outspoken of all the G-8 country leaders. Blair has been characterized as a "poodle" in the British media for his steadfast public support of Bush foreign policy, often at great cost to Blair's standing with the British public and within his own Labour Party. Blair had set two personal priorities as he assumed the Presidency of the European Union for six months and prepared to host the G-8 Summit scheduled that was held July 6-8 in the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland. One of these was action on Sub-Saharan Africa, especially relief from the large debt burden many countries shoulder, and the other was gaining more concerted international action to address climate change

These issues were both discussed by Blair and Bush as they met privately in Washington to discuss a range of international issues. While their joint press conference showed some modest movement by the Bush Administration on African aid, there was little to indicate movement on climate change.

Still, despite the characteristic politeness of Prime Minister Blair in not pursuing his disagreements with his American counterpart in public, the climate change issue received a considerable amount of US media focus, partly because of evidence that came to light of ham-handed censorship of climate science by mid-level White House and Bush Administration political operatives and also because of mounting evidence that big state Republican Governors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, George Pataki of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts were moving aggressively to limit greenhouse emissions. Andrew Revkin of The New York Times on June 7 wrote a story indicating that Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) who had served as "the climate team leader" for the American Petroleum Institute before joining CEQ had in 2002 and 2003 removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research prepared by government scientists from key government documents. The New York Times also published a copy of his notations. Perhaps even more telling was the release of a Statement by a highly respected former member of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) detailing an extensive pattern of politicization of the research process. Rick Piltz, who had served for a number of years on the House Science Committee staff before joining USGCRP in 1995, has generally been viewed by Congressional staffers and Members interested in federal science policy as a remarkably well- informed and balanced observer. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan found himself dogged by questions concerning both the Cooney notations and the Rick Piltz memo at his June 8 press briefing. By June 10 Cooney had resigned and a few days later had joined Exxon- Mobil.

Whether the apparent effort of mid-level Bush Administration political appointees to censor reports of climate science was merely overzealous reach on their part or part of an Administration-wide effort to stifle sound science, the events proved highly embarrassing to the Administration, producing scathing editorials or telling articles in a number of papers of widely differing political hues such as the Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune, Mother Jones and USA Today, and a particularly biting cartoon by The Washington Post's Tom Toles.

The recent media focus on censorship of climate research reports by political operatives untrained in science came soon after a three part series on climate change, The Climate of Man, in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert. The First article on climate change in the Arctic details the remarkable human dimensions of the rapid change underway, especially in Alaskan native villages. The Second Article provides a fascinating description of the role climate change has played in the fall of many human civilizations. The Third article focuses on what can be done to reduce the possibility of the modern world encountering a similar fate. This article illustrates the role of the US recently in hampering any effective international response to climate change.

Yet, perhaps as noteworthy as the increased focus in US media on climate change, has been the sharp break of many prominent Republicans at the state level and on Capitol Hill from the Bush Administration's stance on climate change. Governors of Northeastern states including such nationally prominent Republican figures as New York's George Pataki and Massachusetts' Mitt Romney have joined with the Premiers of the Eastern Canadian provinces in an effort to limit greenhouse emissions. These states have not only taken strong measures at the state level to increase energy efficiency, promote renewable energy and otherwise limit their states' greenhouse emissions, most have indicated that their states would adopt the limitations on CO2 vehicular emissions proposed by California if this survives auto industry litigation.

By far the most dramatic initiative at the state level was the signing June 1, 2005 by California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of an executive order setting forth a three phase plan to reduce greenhouse emissions in California, the US's most populous state. The Plan commits California by 2010 to reduce its greenhouse emissions to levels that existed in 2000.  By 2020 greenhouse emissions are slated to fall to 1990 levels. By 2050 Schwarzenegger has established a target of an 80% reduction below 1990 levels. This is more ambitious even than the target Tony Blair has set for the UK by 2050, particularly as California's population will likely have grown greatly from 1990 to 2050. Under the Schwarzenegger plan per capita greenhouse emissions in California would need to shrink by more than 90% from 1990 to 2050. In an oped July 3 in the British publication The Independent just on the eve of the opening of the Gleneagles Summit, Governor Schwarzenegger  declared, "there's no doubt about the science. Now we must gear our economies to take on global warming."

Also of significance was the breaking of ranks from the Bush Administration on climate change of some key Republican Senators. Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Ted Stevens of Alaska have been pressing for the past year for increased research funding of the possibility that abrupt climate change may soon be underway. John McCain and Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a fellow moderate conservative Republican, have each proposed initiatives that go well past Bush Administration policy. The June 12 Washington Post article, "GOP Warms Up to Emissions Cuts" provides an insightful summary of maneuverings in the US Senate on climate change.

Just as much of the Republican Party seemed to be breaking ranks from the Bush Administration on the climate change issue, The LA Times reported that many of its allies in the business community seemed to be edging toward support for some form of mandatory US greenhouse emissions limitations.

Prime Minister Blair had gone to considerable lengths to make the G-8 Summit in Perthshire, Scotland a major breakthrough on climate change. The United Kingdom had taken steps to ensure that this is a Climate Neutral Summit, i.e. that greenhouse emissions associated with the meeting were offset. The Prime Minister, however, was intent on some more fundamental substantive progress; this can come only if the Bush Administration makes some major policy shifts. Even by the opening of the Summit it was clear that the US had budged very little on its opposition to any form of mandatory limits on greenhouse emissions and draft language on climate change had been watered down to meet US objections.   Furthermore, with the terrorist bombings in London, July 7, the second day of the Summit, attention understandably moved toward terrorism, a central focus of the Bush Administration. Some sizable increases were announced in G-8 pledges for aid to Africa, but climate change, which was discussed for 13 pages of the Summit communiqué, did not see significant advances in national commitments. If a major shift in Bush Administration climate policy ultimately occurs, it is likely to be due less to the President's reciprocating Tony Blair's friendship and private pleas and more to his heeding the rumblings within his own party and the US business community.