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Clean Air-Cool Planet is the Northeast's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.
Bush Plan “Slap in the Face” To Those Making Real Reductions PORTSMOUTH, NH (February 13, 2003)—Noting that corporations, colleges and universities, and cities and towns throughout the Northeast are investing time and money in real greenhouse gas reductions, a regional climate-change action group today sharply criticized the Bush Administration’s voluntary greenhouse gas program. “This is a slap in the face to those organizations and individuals who have worked hard to make real reductions in carbon emissions,” said Adam Markham, executive director of Clean Air – Cool Planet, a Portsmouth, NH-based nonprofit working in eight northeastern states to provide solutions to climate change. Markham noted that Bush’s strategy to reduce the “intensity” of carbon emissions “will actually increase the metric-ton emissions of greenhouse gases over the next 10 years by more than twice the 1999 CO2 tons emitted by all six New England state’s combined. He also pointed out that those same six states — Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island — committed in 2001 to establishing a registry and reporting system by 2005 as part of the New England Climate Change Action Plan. The plan was signed by New England governors and Eastern Canadian officials and demands greenhouse gas emissions in the region be reduced to 1990 levels by 2010. New Hampshire and Massachusetts have already acted to cap CO2 emissions from power plants, Markham noted. “At a time when regional initiatives like this, as well as companies, communities, and campuses region-wide, are focused on making real reduction strategies work, what the Bush Administration is doing can best be described as counterproductive,” he added. Over the last decade, Markham pointed out, reliance on voluntary measures has failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “In contrast, measures such as the Clean Power Act introduced by New England senators Jeffords (I-Vermont), Lieberman (D-Connecticut) and Collins (R-Maine), and the Climate Stewardship Act introduced by Senators McCain (R-Arizona) and Lieberman both seek to cap and then actually reduce carbon emissions.” Markham said the voluntary GHG program, “Climate VISION” (Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now) the Bush White House announced yesterday “is really the latest example of how insincere the President is about tackling this problem. It will only serve to put his Administration more at odds with the state and regional actions—and to push the United States further out of line with the rest of the world. “Unfortunately, this is plainly another attempt to pretend the solution to the problem is at hand, so that Congress will not have the support to act in a meaningful way.” Clean Air – Cool Planet works with corporations, universities and colleges, and cities and towns in New Jersey, New York, and the six New England states to find and promote solutions to greenhouse gas emissions. “The people we work with are employing a variety of strategies—from energy efficiency to new technologies, process improvements, and the development and use of renewable energy—to make meaningful reductions in the amount of CO2 they emit,” Markham noted. “Instead of conjuring yet another way to slide around this issue and continue to propel us toward catastrophic climate changes,” Markham said, “the Bush Administration should be celebrating real solutions and inspiring others to follow suit.” About Clean Air-Cool Planet Contact: Clean Air-Cool Planet |
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