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Schroder and other critics who seem shocked by the President's moves either are easily surprised or simply weren't listening. Bush's decision on CO2 caps was indeed a reversal of campaign promises, but he was always a foe of Kyoto. What's more, since the stock market started to stumble and California and possibly other states began facing power shortages, the Administration has been reluctant to do anything that would raise the price of fossil fuels and discourage their use. "I was straightforward with the European ambassadors in the way that the President has been straightforward on the Kyoto Protocol," Rice told TIME. "The notion that everybody was taken aback or surprised took us as a little odd."
If Bush gauged the heat he'd take from the rest of the world wrong, he read the American people more or less right. A new TIME/CNN poll showed that 75% of those surveyed consider global warming a "very serious" or "fairly serious" problem, and 67% said the President should develop a program to address it. But only 48% said they would be willing to pay 25[cents] more for a gallon of gasoline. And while they are concerned about climate change, they are more fearful of seeing their electric bills soar or of losing their jobs.
Members of both major parties realize that global warming is a long-term problem that carries little short-term political risk. By the time their inaction causes big trouble--maybe decades from now--they'll be long gone. But if they foul up the economy, they'll be sent home next Election Day.
When it comes to the environment in general, the President must answer charges that his campaign sales pitch was little more than bait and switch. Almost immediately upon taking office, the soothing candidate who made it a point to sound so many green themes on the stump began to govern much more like the oil-patch President conservatives hoped he would be. The Administration announced it was suspending rules to reduce arsenic in drinking water, reconsidering Bill Clinton's decision to protect 58 million acres of federal land from logging, and pursuing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (though Bush downplayed that last week in the face of opposition).
With the U.S. essentially sidelining itself in the global-warming fight, it is possible that the battle may never be effectively engaged. What's causing the most distress among environmentalists is that all this comes at a time when many other pieces of the global-warming solution seemed to be falling into place. In the U.S., state and local governments have been increasingly active in implementing greenhouse programs of their own, clamping down on emissions within their borders, stepping up mass-transit initiatives and enforcing conservation laws. Corporations in such sooty industries as oil and autos have been climbing on board too, imposing on themselves the very restrictions Washington won't. Outside the U.S., green-leaning developed nations like the E.U. members and emerging polluters like China and Mexico have seemed to be getting the message, implementing new programs and testing new technologies to control global warming, even without the cudgel of Kyoto.