by Diana Kuan, originally published May 16, 2007 in Metro US
America has finally awakened to the dangers of a little thing called global warming. We know we should drastically reduce gas and energy consumption if we still want a livable planet in a few decades. But instead of being quick to act, the US finds is easier to point fingers.
The American view on global warming is that developing countries are the enemies. The Bush administration's current reasoning for opting out of the Kyoto Protocol is that developing nations like China and India aren't currently held to any emissions limits. Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, echoing the views of many lawmakers, said last month, "I will not support major legislation imposed upon the American economic system ... unless and until we have brought the Chinese on board." Almost every day, the media delivers apocalyptic reports on China's and India's CO2 emissions, projected to surpass US emissions in five to ten years.
Nevermind that because China and India each have populations of over 1 billion, our per capita consumption is currently 20 times that of either country. Over the past 150 years, since the industrial revolution in the US and Europe, our factories, homes, and later, cars, have been responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the rest of the world combined. Now that Asian and South American countries have rising CO2 levels that are a natural part of booming economies, the West has a scapegoat. We also forget that most of the people in China, India, Brazil, and other similar countries still struggle to raise themselves from abject poverty. Demanding these countries to reduce their emissions before the US does is like saying a poor man should give up electricity before a rich man should give up a second car.
The media and politicians also tend to forget that our voracious appetite for cheap goods is partly responsible for sharply rising pollution and energy consumption in Asia. In China, factories rely on coal and petroleum to not only to meet the production demands of the Chinese, but also the West. The US, when outsourcing cheap labor, also outsources its pollution.
Western counties are shifting the blame away from the damage they have caused in the past, and continue to cause today. They also fail to see the efforts developing countries are making. China, the country Congress criticizes the most, is already working with Japan on a successor to Kyoto; its targeted emissions reduction currently exceeds the US's by percentage. And the efforts of China and other developing nations will have little effect if the US continues to sit back and deny its own role in environmental degredation.
