For immediate release: April
16, 2008
Contact: Matthew Davis,
Environment Maine, (cell) 617-529-5855
Bush Climate Announcement on Crash
Course with Scientific Reality
PORTLAND, ME—President Bush
today announced a new goal of stopping the growth of U.S. global warming emissions by
2025. Yet, in 2007, the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global
emissions must peak no later than 2015 to prevent catastrophic effects of
global warming.
“Global warming is already
transforming the world. Last month,
global warming caused a chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan to suddenly
collapse. President Bush’s plan is on a
crash course with scientific reality. The
time for action is today – not 20 years from now,” said Environment Maine’s
Organizational Development Director Matthew Davis.
According to the Department
of Energy, U.S.
energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are projected to increase by more than
16% above 2006 levels by 2025.
To protect future generations
from the worst effects of global warming, such as a massive rise in sea levels
and the extinction of many species worldwide, the most recent science indicates
that the United States must halt increases in its global warming emissions
immediately, cut its emissions by at least 15 to 20 percent by 2020, and slash
its emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.
“To solve this urgent
problem, America must invest
in a clean energy future with an emphasis on energy efficient homes and
buildings and solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources,” added Davis. “Instead of focusing on the cleanest,
quickest, and cheapest solutions, the President is focused on expensive and
dangerous technologies, like nuclear power,” he pointed out.
Maine’s global warming
emissions dropped slightly in the years 2004 and 2005, but the state is not on
track to meet the New England Governor’s agreement of reducing emissions to
1990 levels by 2010, 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 75-85 percent
below current levels by 2050.
“Maine
has taken a number of steps to reduce emissions, but we need to be taking
bigger steps faster,” Davis
concluded. “Gov. Baldacci should cap his tenure in the Blaine House by setting
a cap on emissions.”
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Environment Maine advocates clean air, clean water and
open spaces on behalf of more than 4,000 members statewide.
