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By Herve Kempf
Le Monde
The United States turned a corner April 2, by way of the Supreme Court's voice. By affirming that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has complete legitimacy to regulate automobile carbon emissions, the highest American court lifted the bolt barring the fight against climate change. In the triangle of powers that provides the structure for the American political system, the constitutional authority has consequently weighted the scale against the president - who refuses to limit emissions - in favor of Congress, which chafes with impatience to tackle this problem. In practice, the court has set in motion a logic that will lead to devices to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). Certainly, the Environmental Protection Agency is not compelled to regulate, but it will almost certainly be sued - and will lose - if it does not.
The court's decree did not come out of the blue. It fits into an atmosphere that has changed profoundly since George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 without provoking much protest in his country. The judges ruled at the request of a large coalition that brought together twelve states (led by Massachusetts), as well as cities and associations. The ruling came down several days after the widely publicized appearance of Al Gore, Mr. Bush's losing rival [who is] now converted to climate change prophet, before Senate and House committees March 21. He was welcomed like the prodigal son by senators competing to demonstrate their environmental goodwill, and no one choked when Gore proposed to stabilize the United States' GHG emissions immediately and to target reducing them by ... 90 percent by 2050.
Moreover, the idea of reducing these emissions is broadly shared: one of the five proposed laws on the subject, signed by, among other people, the two leading Democratic 2008 presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, allows for a 30 percent reduction by 2050. One of the other proposals - that advanced by California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman - allows for an 80 percent reduction in the United States's emissions by 2050. When one remembers that in 1998 Bill Clinton couldn't find more than five senators to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, one can measure how far the US has come. Another Democrat well-placed in the presidential race, John Edwards, proposes an ambitious energy program: the implementation of an emissions market targeting a 15 percent reduction by 2020; negotiation of an international treaty, including emerging countries; suppression of $3 billion of oil company subsidies, and a goal to arrest the growth in electricity consumption within the next decade.
If Democrats seem the most determined to commit to the climate change struggle, Republicans are not absent. California, governed by one of the most famous Republicans, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has adopted a law imposing a 30 percent reduction on vehicle emissions by 2016 - a norm adopted by twelve other states, and the implementation of which should be eased by the Supreme Court decision. California is also preparing the implementation of an emissions market and has just indicated to a European Union delegation that this market should logically join with the European market. That should also eventually be the case for the market being prepared by a dozen states in the country's Northeast.
Big companies - such as General Electric, DuPont, Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart - have clearly indicated that they take climate change seriously, while here and there cities and counties begin to take punctual measures, from the prohibition of plastic bags in supermarkets to replacement of energy-hungry light bulbs. A part of the public is also trying to evolve, if one may judge by the take-off in Toyota's hybrid (and low gas-consuming) vehicles' sales, which increased 68 percent in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2006, in an overall stagnant market.
So a large share of American decision-makers has decided to get on board. That means that once the Bush parentheses have closed, the United States will, undoubtedly, rejoin the international community in negotiation of the follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol. Still, that does not mean that the richest society on the planet is really ready to change a very wasteful way of life. Witness, for example, its ever-growing energy consumption: according to Platts, McGraw-Hill's division for energy analysis, the United States in the next five years is supposed to install a 37 gigawatt capacity ... of coal-fired electricity plants.
The message is only rarely transmitted with clarity by politicians: Al Gore, to cite only one of them, doesn't indicate that a reduction in energy consumption is necessary to reduce emissions and allows people to believe that technological progress will resolve all problems. No doubt, politicians feel the middle class is all the less ready for these efforts in that it already feels weakened and disadvantaged compared to the richest classes. An example of this growing social frustration: the television channel CNN presented a report on March 29 entitled "The War against the Middle Class," based on a study by researchers Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. That study shows that, in 2005, inequalities in the United States reached their highest level since 1928, with the richest one percent earning on average 440 times more than the average salary of the 150 million Americans situated on the lower end of the scale.
Thus, President Bush has not yet lost the climate change battle. He can now claim to maintain his positions by promoting biofuels - which have as a first advantage that they assure the support of Midwest farmers - and energy research. These arguments could make the public believe that its way of life will not be affected. But, up until now, technological advances have not been adequate to prevent an increase in pollution created by the globe's premier economic power. Big companies and political officials will have to convince people that the trend can be inverted. In the absence of which, Washington and Jefferson's heirs will have to resolve to reassess the legendary "American way of life."
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