Analysis: How green is Bush?

By The BBC's Tim Hirsch

Standing outside the Texas state capitol building in Austin where George W Bush made his acceptance speech for the US presidency, it is easy to see why supporters of international efforts to combat global warming are worried.

Big sports utility vehicles and monster pick-up trucks dominate the traffic streaming along the city's main street. Size clearly takes priority over fuel efficiency when it comes to a Texan's choice of vehicle.

The President-elect's home state is also the home of the US oil industry, and it comes as no surprise that Texas leads the way in emissions of greenhouse gases. With around a third of the population of the UK, the Lone State State emits 20% more carbon dioxide.

Add to that Mr Bush's background in the oil business, and it is not surprising that European leaders have been scrambling to try to get an international deal on anti-climate change measures before Bill Clinton leaves the White House on 20 January.

Peter Altman runs an environmental pressure group in Austin which has been tracking the Bush record during his term as governor of Texas. He says it should serve as a warning about his likely approach to the environment as president.

On defensive

"He has repeatedly sided with big business and industry that wants to pollute more and have fewer laws to comply with," said Mr Altman.

"He advocated a voluntary approach to an air pollution problem that was deadly serious. He is telling polluters, you clean up if you want to, we're not going to make you."

During the election campaign, the Bush team was pushed onto the defensive about the governor's environmental record in Texas - the Republicans claimed that he had in fact started to reduce emissions from the state's utilities.

George W Bush has said he is opposed to the Kyoto protocol

But speaking to his advisers, it is clear that George Bush has little time for the international efforts to bind the United States to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

"He has said that he does not support the Kyoto protocol," said Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.

"He believes it is unfair to the United States. He does want to do more to research the causes of global climate change, but he wants decisions to be based on science, not on fads or junk science."

No illusions

That confirms the impression Mr Bush gave during the campaign about being ambivalent at best as to whether he believed there was a link between emissions and climate change.

It also has echoes of the language used by those oil companies which continue to oppose the Kyoto agreement.

Pete Altman says European leaders should have no illusions about George Bush when it comes to international negotiations.

"They should just assume that in reality they are negotiating with Exxon Mobil, which has written Bush's environment laws in the past, and which is a company that now has strong ties to a Bush administration."

Rescue deal

Whether or not that changes as Mr Bush assembles his full team in the White House and faces the reality of leading the world's most powerful country, it is a fair bet that he will be considerably less willing than the Clinton administration to compromise with European governments who are pressing the United States to adopt tougher targets to reduce its own emissions.

That is why there have been frantic efforts in the final days of the Clinton presidency to rescue the deal which eluded negotiators at November's climate change conference in The Hague. The failure of those efforts does not bode well for the future of international attempts to combat global warming.

Confidence has not exactly been helped by comments from the woman tipped to head the US Environmental Protection Agency under Mr Bush, the Governor of New Jersey Christie Whitman.

Asked for her comments on the science of global warming, Mrs Whitman replied: "Still somewhat uncertain. Clearly there's a hole in the ozone, that has been identified.

"But I saw a study the other day that showed that that was closing. It's not as clear, the cause and effect, as we would like it to be."

She was confusing two separate problems - the build-up of gases which warm the atmosphere and the depletion of the ozone layer which allows ultra-violet rays from the sun to reach the Earth.