Don't pander on Kyoto

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Internal signals indicate that the Bush administration is considering a watered-down version of Kyoto-style regulation to try and take the hot-button issue of "global warming" off of the table for the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. Though well-intended, this would prove disastrous in practice. As a candidate in 2000, President Bush read a speech in Saginaw, Mich., calling for regulation of carbon dioxide, one of six "greenhouse gases" (GHGs), which proceeded to haunt his environmental and foreign policy. He should avoid compounding that mistake.

Bush advisers rightly view the primaries as an opportunity to advertise party ideology by hashing out the strongest economic and national security plans, leaving the Democrats to publicly fiddle about a purportedly burning planet while terrorists plot to explode planes and trains around them. Some advisors fear not only the prospect of these discussions being dominated by an issue of no benefit to the Republican campaign, but one with which candidates will be visibly uncomfortable.

Certainly, averting a race to the bottom, in which candidates seek to match Sen. John McCain's Kyoto fetish, is a net plus. Opponents would no doubt parrot the "global warming" politics of pork (e.g, ethanol for Iowa farmers) and much of Mr. McCain's rhetoric in pursuit of a green patina for northeastern and cross-over primary voters. Other contenders, such as Sen. Sam Brownback, are already preparing their own plans.

Apparently some advisers believe that pre-emptive action could take the wind out of Mr. McCain's sails, which completely misses the reality on the ground. The Republican base has enough to dispirit it without adopting the mantle of what French President Jacques Chirac calls "the first component of an authentic global governance." Further, spending billions on a scheme that no one claims would have an impact on the climate hardly averts self-inflicted wounds; instead, it capitulates on a winnable issue, perpetuating it and expediting its advance.

Would this move attract voters? It is noteworthy that every environmental pressure group sat out the primary challenge to their most vocal Democratic supporter, "Kyoto Joe" Lieberman, claiming the race "snuck up on us." Nonsense. An antiwar candidate showed some ankle and they swooned. Green pandering will convince none of those few who rank this issue high on their list of priorities to vote Republican, so long as the Republican advocates an aggressive war on America's enemies.

Possibly the president's aides feel the exercise would appeal to swing voters bombarded by pressure-group mantras about Republicans being out to poison their children. Not only do polls belie this, but educating voters on the folly of Kyoto-style policies would serve a candidate much better than pandering.

Republican candidates should instead respond to pleas by Mr. McCain, et al., for a regime that rations energy use emissions, by exposing its failure elsewhere. Despite Mr. McCain's serial public denials, Europe's emissions have increased since Kyoto and continue to rise. Europe installed precisely that system which Mr. McCain demands, and the government-created scarcity, or "market" for "GHG credits" spiked, then collapsed, costing the economy millions and millions in return for no environmental benefit.

The vast majority of the world's countries continue to reject Kyoto's rationing. Why should we rescue it when we have also learned, for example, of European governments playing fast and loose -- not just with their "credit" allocations, but also with their historical emission figures so as to quietly lower the costs of their Kyoto violation, if not actual emissions. This is hardly a ringing endorsement to trust either the scheme or its promoters.

Republican challengers should welcome the opportunity to note that every proposed regime to regulate greenhouse gases, most notably Kyoto but also the "McCain-Lieberman" bill, is designed to fail. These proposals claim the objective of stabilizing atmospheric GHG concentrations, which man actually cannot dictate: Concentrations have been much higher and much lower in the past, all due to natural causes. Man can only contribute at the margins. What happens when the seas release large quantities of carbon dioxide, volcanoes erupt, or other natural phenomena prompt an increase in concentrations? Whose power plants must shut down?

Indeed, Europe and the Kyoto establishment have confronted this embarrassing truth with further tricks, speaking instead of a (nonexistent) promise to avoid a temperature increase of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. This is an absurd metric not only because "pre-industrial" temperatures happen to fall in the Little Ice Age, a time of misery and crop failure airbrushed from the historical record by alarmists until recently restored by a National Academies of Science panel. Additionally, just as with GHG concentrations, temperatures historically vary, higher than now and lower, all without our help. Man cannot control them, either. Codifying such conceits is irresponsible.

Existing programs are proven failures due to political and corrupting factors. They are designed to fail. Man simply does not have a global thermostat, no matter how much keening over modernity surrounds intimations to the contrary. Why not debate these truths? Instead of falling for promises to not creep very far out of the most recent ice age, President Bush and Republican primary candidates need to give "global warming" promoters the cold shoulder.

Christopher C. Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.