US "will miss" window to tackle climate change

London, 23 November: US senator Jeff Bingaman has warned that the US will not be able to take sufficient action to curb its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the timeframe scientists say is necessary.

In the recently published Stern review, former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern called for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to be signed in 2007, not in 2010 or 2011 as is currently expected.

Earlier this week, NASA scientist James Hansen – who said that White House officials were censoring climate change warnings from the space agency – told Reuters: "We have to be on a fundamentally different path within a decade."

But speaking at the London School of Economics on Tuesday, the Democrat senator for New Mexico said: "I think that the reality is this issue is probably not going to ripen and mature and get solved in that window."

Moreover, Bingaman indicated that the US could opt for a domestic solution for cutting emissions, rather than join the Kyoto Protocol after its current targets expire in 2012. He said: "I really don't think the Kyoto Protocol is something that anyone is debating in the US. The debate is now to the question of what are realistic goals that we could hope to agree and accomplish."

But he added: "The ideal end result will be to get a cap-and-trade system that will be world-wide. The US has got to do something credible at the national level."

Even if the newly Democrat-controlled Congress pushed through such a measure, it would be unlikely to be carried out while George Bush remains president, Bingaman said. "Realistically, it is going to be difficult to complete action on a cap-and-trade system in the US in these final two years of the Bush administration."

Instead, those favouring mandatory controls on GHGs will have to wait until after the 2008 presidential election. "Many of the potential presidential candidates have stated their support for a system of mandatory controls," said Bingaman.