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Bush's Comments on Global Warming Signal 'More Than a Shift in Rhetoric'

"What is needed now is creative thought to design a program that meets America's economic and environmental needs," says Tim Profeta

President George Bush's acknowledgment this week that an increase in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is contributing to the problem signals more than a shift in rhetoric, says a Duke University environmental policy expert.

"America has reached a tipping point," says Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke. "The president has admitted the problem is real and must be addressed, and a majority of senators have demanded a mandatory control program. What is needed now is creative thought to design a program that meets America's economic and environmental needs."

Prior to taking the helm of the Nicholas Institute earlier this year, Profeta served for more than four years as environmental counsel to U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and was a chief architect of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2003. 

He notes that the Republican-led Senate recently passed a resolution calling upon itself to develop a mandatory program for greenhouse gas reductions that will slow, stop and ultimately reverse U.S. emissions. 

Any such program, Profeta says, needs to be designed so that reductions can be made during the normal business planning cycle. It should use a market-based cap and trade system that will identify the most efficient reductions. And it should create incentives to help industry control the risk and cost of developing next-generation energy sources and technologies. These concessions will minimize the financial sting of emissions control, he says.

Prior to arriving at the Group of Eight summit this week in Scotland, Bush publicly acknowledged that the surface of the Earth was getting warmer and that human-caused greenhouse gases were contributing to the problem, but he said he would reject any calls for action by fellow G8 members to impose limits on carbon emissions. 

Ignoring calls for action from members of his own party - “ as well as recent polls that show as many as 94 percent of Americans believe we should limit emissions “- will be more difficult for the president, Profeta predicts. "Legislators are hearing from their constituents," he says. "The political momentum for this action is growing."