OPINION/COMMENTARY

Why Does an Important Climate Program Go Unheralded?

European greens expressed their displeasure with President Bush on his visit to Europe this week for American unwillingness to support the Kyoto accord, with its greenhouse gas emissions cuts for developed nations. But the Bush administration is taking concrete -- if largely unheralded by Europeans and a hostile American media -- steps on climate change issues. Upon the Kyoto agreement coming into force for its signatories last week, Gregg Easterbrook noted in The New Republic that "The world's first international anti-global-warming agreement to take force is not the Kyoto treaty. It is a Bush Administration initiative, and you have not heard a peep regarding the initiative because the American press corps is pretending it does not exist." That program is the Methane to Markets (M2M) initiative. According to Easterbrook, "The White House's July 2004 agreement requires the United States, United Kingdom, India, Ukraine, Mexico, and Italy to reduce global methane emissions by an amount equal to roughly one percent of all greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere by human activity." As Easterbrook pointed out: "[T]the best-case outcome for the Kyoto treaty is roughly a one percent reduction in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas." Bush's methane initiative will remove 50 million metric tons by 2015. According to the Energy Information Administration, that amounts to the equivalent of:

· Taking 33 million cars off the road for a year.

· Eliminating 50 coal fired electricity plants.

· Providing enough heat to warm 7.2 million households for a year....