When the 178 nations quit congratulating each other over their achievement of working out an agreement on a modified Kyoto treaty while the United States watched at an embarrassing distance, they will turn to the largest single producer of carbon dioxide and wonder whether this nation will take its world responsibilities seriously. It can and should, and Congress can help.

The Bush administration no doubt hoped to find sufficient doubt in the climate-change report it requested of the National Academy of Sciences to give it cause to delay action on this issue. Instead, it found unprecedented certainty: “Greenhouse gases,” according to the report released last month, “are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities. The greenhouse gas of most concern is carbon dioxide. There is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past twenty years.”

The other half of the administration’s objection – that the treaty itself is seriously flawed – is impossible to disprove by any means but experience. Negotiators have included in the treaty elements that the United States has demanded, such as emissions trading and something known as the Clean Development Mechanism, which rewards industrialized nations for helping out with technology in developing ones. More changes were possible had the White House encouraged the treaty process rather than trying to block it. But it appeared that the administration would remain opposed to the treaty even if it named Vice President Cheney its chief policy-maker.

If the Kyoto agreement is eventually ratified by at least 55 nations, as expected, the United States and U.S. businesses looking for support to develop clean technologies could be left behind and later have a much shorter timetable for making air-quality improvements. No matter the flaws in the agreement, it is better for the administration to look for ways the nation can align itself with the emission rollbacks in the treaty and be prepared to join it at some point in the future – perhaps after the flaws it is so worried about are exposed.

Meantime, the several measures in Congress that would combat climate change need to be put into a coherent package and presented as a plan that shows the United States is as concerned about this issue as anyone else. That package might start with the proposed creation of an Office of Climate Change with access to the president and the authority to direct U.S. policy. It should also include current proposals to reduce the major pollutants that lead to global warming, especially from coal-fired power plants and cars, and investment in research and development to cleaner energy sources.

Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have pressed for these proposals, and both have written the president urging that he give greater attention to climate change to work constructively to support international negotiations on it. The Senate, where there is bipartisan support in the Commerce Committee, which will hear these proposals, can provide the president with a reform package that shows the United States is serious about the problem and is willing to act.