Globalist Heart-Warming

AS world leaders prepare for their impending summit in Kyoto, Japan, where they are supposed to decide what to do about global warming, there seems to be a distinct cooling in the political atmosphere. Western European leaders still insist that dramatic steps are needed to curb the emission of carbon dioxide, supposedly responsible for an ominous warming trend in the global climate. President Clinton has insisted, however, that he will not even consider new fuel taxes in the United States, and he has urged less ambitious targets for reduction in CO2 and other “greenhouse gases.” Few other countries are rallying to the ambitious vision of the European Union; in fact, most countries are refusing to commit themselves to doing anything in the near term.

One reason for the political chill is that the scientific evidence for the global-warming scare has come to look more and more tenuous. Even the UN’s own scientific advisory panel-which has a distinct incentive to exaggerate the threat-has acknowledged grounds for doubting whether human activity is responsible for the warming trend of the past century. It has substantially lowered its own earlier estimates of the rate of change, while at the same time extending far into the next century its earlier projections for serious environmental consequences.

JR

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Jeremy Rabkin

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AS world leaders prepare for their impending summit in Kyoto, Japan, where they are supposed to decide what to do about global warming, there seems to be a distinct cooling in the political atmosphere. Western European leaders still insist that dramatic steps are needed to curb the emission of carbon dioxide, supposedly responsible for an ominous warming trend in the global climate. President Clinton has insisted, however, that he will not even consider new fuel taxes in the United States, and he has urged less ambitious targets for reduction in CO2 and other “greenhouse gases.” Few other countries are rallying to the ambitious vision of the European Union; in fact, most countries are refusing to commit themselves to doing anything in the near term.

One reason for the political chill is that the scientific evidence for the global-warming scare has come to look more and more tenuous. Even the UN’s own scientific advisory panel-which has a distinct incentive to exaggerate the threat-has acknowledged grounds for doubting whether human activity is responsible for the warming trend of the past century. It has substantially lowered its own earlier estimates of the rate of change, while at the same time extending far into the next century its earlier projections for serious environmental consequences.