Argument: Developed states are doing everything they can on climate change

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Pete Du Pont. “Bali Who?”. Wall Street Journal. December 19, 2007 – In light of all this criticism, what is the status of global emissions over the past few decades? Compared with other countries, how has America done? We generate about 25% of the world’s global warming emissions, which is not surprising since we are about 27% of the global economy.

From 1990 to 1995, America’s emissions increased 3.9% compared with 3.4% for other developed nations.

From 1995 to 2000, the emissions increased to 11.3%, compared with other developed nations’ decline of 1.4%.

From 2000 to 2005, our increase was 0.6% compared with other nations’ 2.7%.

So we are making progress. Comparing us with other nations over the 1990-2005, period we are doing better than Canada, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, and not as well as Australia, France, Germany, Britain and the Scandinavian nations.

There is no question we must do the research to find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and that is going forward. As President Bush pointed out in last year’s State of the Union address: “Since 2001 we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources.” If the Congress fully funds the President’s 2008 budget it will total $15 billion.