US President George W. Bush presented 14 February his alternative plan to the Kyoto Protocol, which is designed to slow down global warming. This proposal places no obligation whatsoever on industrialists and is based on voluntary measures and tax incentives. The White House hastened to describe the Bush plan as "the most audacious program in American history aiming at reducing power station gas emissions." But environmentalists immediately attacked this US proposal. 
	
	
 "A Valentine's Day gift for the polluters." Carl Pope, the director of the Sierra Club, one of the major US environmental protection associations, does not mince his words when describing the US plan to replace the Kyoto Protocol. 
	
	
 Presented Thursday 14 February by President George W. Bush, this alternative plan for slowing down global warming moves away from the binding measures of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, recently approved by more than 170 countries in Marrakech, but rejected in March 2001 by President Bush, who deemed it harmful to the US economy and reproached it for imposing constraints on industrialized countries only. 
	
	
 So this new version has new bases. Contrary to the preceding one, the plan proposed by Washington Thursday thus no longer has any binding procedure and is based on voluntary measures and tax incentives. It advocates a voluntarist approach to the fight against global warming by directly linking the objectives of greenhouse gas reduction to US economic growth. 
	
	
 According to the White House, this should make it possible to reduce "the intensity of greenhouse gas emission generated by the US economy" by 18% over the next 10 years, an objective described by the Bush Administration as "comparable" to that imposed by the Kyoto Protocol. 
	
	
 For the moment Mr. Bush simply proposes to curb the increase in harmful gas emissions and is counting on the good will of US industrialists, who account for 36% of the greenhouse gas produced by industrialized countries (as opposed to 31.6% for Europe). The objectives, as set out in the plan, are to "slow down and then stop the growth in the emissions of harmful gases and, if scientific studies justify it, diminish them." 
	
	
 The aim is to lower polluting emissions from 183 tonnes per million dollars of GDP to 151 tonnes in 2012. To encourage industry and consumers to demonstrate environmental public spiritedness Mr. Bush proposes tax incentives of $4.6 billion for the adoption of renewable sources of energy. 
	
	
 Mr. Bush calls for India and China To Act 
	
	
 The US President asserted, moreover, his determination to win developing countries over to his plan, stating that the US approach would give them a "yardstick for progress on climate changes which recognizes their right to economic development." He asserted, in an allusion to the binding objectives of the Kyoto Protocol, that it would be "unjust and counterproductive to condemn developing countries to weak or even nonexistant economic growth by insisting that they adopt unrealistic greenhouse gas reduction targets." 
	
	
 Mr. Bush did, nevertheless, affirm that "the United States will not interfere with the countries opting for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol." "But I have the intention of working with nations, particularly developing nations, to convince them that a better approach exists," he said. 
	
	
 President George W. Bush considered, moreover, that it would be "irresponsible" not to ask India and China to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. "Developing nations such as China and India already account for a majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. And it would be irresponsible to absolve them from shouldering some of the shared obligations" in the fight against global warming. 
	
	
 The Discontent of the Environmentalists 
	
	
 As far as the US Administration is concerned, this approach will make it posible to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in the long run, while sustaining the economic growth needed to finance our investments in a new, cleaner energy structure." 
	
	
 The White House hastened to describe the Bush plan as "the most audacious program in American history aiming at reducing power station gas emissions," considering that it would be possible to save the administration up to $1 billion, compared to the costs that binding rules would lead to. But environmentalists immediately attacked this US proposal. 
	
	
 Philip Clapp, president of the National Environment Trust, sums up well the general thrust of the reaction of environmental movements: "There is no reason at all to believe that the polluters are suddenly going to become reasonable." Carl Pope, the director of the Sierra Club, considers for his part that the Bush Administration "is sticking to the polluting policies that the energy industry asked for rather than taking the sensible steps that can protect our health." According to Steve Sawyer, one of Greenpeace International's climate experts, the plan "will have very little effect on emissions, assuming it has any." "Instead of making itself the champion of the global fight against the greenhouse effect, the United States is moving in exactly the opposite direction from that followed by the rest of the international community with the Kyoto Protocol," according to Greenpeace.