HAZY CLIMATE GAINS

Environmental groups were quick to criticize a six-nation climate pact as too little, too late. They are right, but bringing China, the world’s fastest growing emitter of greenhouse gases, to the table to talk about climate change is an important step. The key will be quickly following the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate with actions to reduce the emissions of climate altering pollutants, especially in the United States.

The Bush administration announced last week that it had entered into an agreement with China, Japan, India, Australia and South Korea to develop cleaner energy technology as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The agreement is voluntary and contains no emissions caps. Instead, the pact seeks to help developing countries adopt technologies that reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency. The countries will work together to further so-called clean coal, liquefied natural gas, nuclear power, solar, wind and geothermal power.

China gets 75 percent of its electricity from coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, and with 500 years’ worth of coal reserves, there is little incentive to use other fuels. In fact, local governments plan to build dozens of coal-fired power plants to keep up with the yearly 15 percent increase in energy use. While it would be better to get countries like China to use fewer fossil fuels like coal, a first step is for them to adopt cleaner technologies. Efficient power plants that burn clean coal emit one-third as many greenhouse gases as traditional power plants. Just getting the Chinese to build such plants will be beneficial.

In fact, Chinese officials are more receptive than their American counterparts to reducing energy consumption. In February, a law was enacted requiring power-grid operators to buy electricity from producers of wind, solar, geothermal and small- and medium-scale hydro energy. It sets the goal of raising renewable energy’s share of national consumption from the current level of 3 to 10 percent by 2020.

A similar provision, passed by the U.S. Senate, was stripped out of the final energy bill passed by Congress last week. China has also adopted widespread energy-saving standards for household appliances and auto emissions standards that are far tougher than those in the United States.

China uses three times more energy per dollar of its gross domestic product than the global average and 4.7 times more than the United States, according to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy. However, the United States is by far the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

So far attempts to reduce emissions, such as the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, which would have limited greenhouse gas emissions from all major sectors of the economy to 2000 levels by 2010 and was supported by Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have failed in Congress. The Senate did pass an unprecedented resolution calling for mandatory caps on pollution linked to climate change but failed to pass any legislation that would have put such caps in place.

Still, getting lawmakers, including President Bush, to acknowledge and talk about climate change is an important step. Rather than criticizing such steps as being too small, lawmakers in the United States and the five other countries must be encouraged to take more, larger steps.