How America is likely to take over leadership of the fight agairist climate change; and how it can get h right.
A country with a presidential system tends to get identified with its leader. So, for the rest of the world, Ameri-ca is George Bush s America right now. It is the country that has mismanaged the Iraq war; holds prisoners withouttrial at Guantmamo Bay ; restricts funding for stem-cell research because of fundamentalist religious beliefs ; and de-stroyed the chance of a global climate-change deal based on the Kyoto Protocol.
But to simplify thus is to misunderstand——especially in the case of the huge, federal America. One of its greatstrengths is the diversity of its political, economic and cultural life. While the White House dug its heels in on globalwarming, much of the rest of the country was moving. That s what forced the president s concession to greens in thestate-of-the-union address. His poll ratings sinking under the weight of Iraq, President Bush is grasping for popularissues to keep him afloat; and global warming has evidently become such an issue. Albeit in the context of energy se-curity, a now familiar concern of his, President Bush spoke for the first time to Congress of "the serious challenge ofglobal climate change" and proposed measures designed, in part to combat it.
It s the weather, appropriately, that has tumed public opinion——starting with Hurricane Katrina. Scientists hadbeen warning Americans for years that the risk of "extreme weather events" would probably increase as a result ofclimate change. But scientific papers do not drive messages home as convincingly as the destruction of a city. Andthe heat wave that torched Americas west coast last year, accompanied by a constant drip of new research on melt~~ing glaciers and dying polar bears, has only strengthened the belief that something must be done.
Business is changing its mind too. Five years ago corporate America was solidly against carbon controls. But thethreat of a patchwork of state regulations, combined with the opportunity to profit from new technologies, began toshift business attitudes. And that movement has gained momentum, because companies that saw their competitors es-pouse carbon controls began to fear that, once the government got down to designing regulations, they would be leftout of the discussion if they did not jump on the bandwagon. So now the loudest voices are not resisting change butarguing for it.
Support for carbon controls has also grown among some unlikely groups: security hawks （who want to reduce A-merica s dependence on Middle Eastern oil） ; farmers （who like subsidies for growing the raw material for ethanol） ;and evangelicals （who worry that man should be looking after the Earth God gave him a little better）. This alliancehas helped persuade politicians to move. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California s Republican governor, has led the ad-vance, with muscular measures legislating Kyoto-style curbs in his state. His popularity has rebounded as a result.And now there is movement too at the federal level, which is where it really matters. Bills to tackle climate changehave proliferated. And three of the serious candidates for the presidency in 2008——John McCain, Hillary Clinton andBarack Obama——are all pushing for federal measures.
Unfortunately, President Bushs newfound interest in climate change is coupled with, and distorted by, his fo-cus on energy security. Reducing America s petrol consumption by 20% by 2017, a target he announced in thestate-of-the-union address, would certainly diminish the country s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but the way heplans to go about it may not be either efficient or clean. Increasing fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks will gopart of the way, but for most of the switch America will have to rely on a greater use of alternative fuels. That meansethanol （ inefficient because of heavy subsidies and high tariffs on imports of foreign ethanol） or liquefied coal （ filthybecause of high carbon emissions）.
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