http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17996839/site/newsweek/April 16, 2007 issue - The Bush administration made two notable statements on energy policy early in its tenure. They were both highly controversial. The first was that the Kyoto accords, as negotiated, were "dead." The second was Dick Cheney's declaration in a 2001 speech that "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." As it happens, both are accurate and should be at the heart of any new, ambitious policy to tackle global warming and energy use. If you haven't fainted yet, let me explain what I mean.
The administration had several narrow-minded and callous reasons for rejecting Kyoto, but among its main arguments was that the accords did not include developing countries and thus were ineffective. To understand why that is correct, consider one simple statistic. During the Kyoto time frame (that is, by 2012), China and India will build almost 800 new coal-fired power plants. The combined CO2 emissions from those plants will be five times the total reductions in CO2 mandated by the accords.
Here's the math. These 800 new plants will burn about 900 million extra tons of coal every year. By 2012 they will have emitted about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. During that period, if the countries that have signed the Kyoto accords implement them fully—a big "if"—they will cut their CO2 emissions by 483 million tons.
Understanding the causes and cures of global warming is actually very simple. One word: coal. Coal is the cheapest and dirtiest source of energy around and is being used in the world's fastest-growing countries. If we cannot get a handle on the coal problem, nothing else matters.
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