Editorial: United States taking the heat

Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005 | 7:54 a.m.

Environmentalists and international officials gathering this week in Canada for a U.N. conference on climate change have criticized the United States for its greenhouse gas emissions policies.

More than 8,000 scientists, government officials and activists are meeting in Montreal for 10 days to formulate rules for a new global treaty to cut emissions of greenhouse, or heat-trapping, gases. The existing treaty -- the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that was ratified by 140 of the countries attending the conference -- ends in 2012.

The Kyoto agreement calls for the top 35 industrialized countries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. It targets five gases, such as carbon dioxide, that scientists say have raised global temperatures and affected weather.

The United States emits 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- the most of any country. But U.S. officials refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying emissions caps will hurt the nation's economy and that the treaty is unfair because it doesn't restrict such emerging economies as China and India.

The Bush administration spends $5 billion annually on developing technology to combat emissions and is committed to lowering the growth of U.S. emissions by 18 percent by 2012. But those efforts won't work quickly enough to reduce global warming, critics say.

We think emerging economies should be brought into the treaty's next phase. And as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States should lead by example and join this global effort, although that doesn't seem possible with this administration's indifference to environmental concerns.