John McCain on global warming

From the New York Times:

PORTLAND, Ore. — Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President Bush on Monday as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also pledged to work with the European Union to diplomatically engage China and India, two of the world’s biggest polluters, if those nations refused to participate in an international agreement to slow global warming.

In what his campaign promoted as a major speech on climate change, the Arizona senator renewed his support for a “cap-and-trade” system in which power plants and other polluters could meet limits on greenhouse gases by either reducing emissions on their own or buying credits from more efficient producers.

I can see limits on emissions of "greenhouse gases," but not because of global warming. It makes sense to reduce the amount of bad stuff that we put into the atmosphere. At the same time, I have to ask how McCain proposes we generate the electricity we demand if we don't build any new plants that use fossil fuel. Yeah, GE is all for nuclear power. I wonder why. What I need to know more about is what McCain wants us to cut back on as we limit the pollution we put into the air.

I do give him credit for trying to engage China and India in this process, though. Whether it's global warming or just plain common sense, we can't clean the environment on a global scale if these two countries are not involved.

Having said that, we should note that pollution control is a fuction of affluence. Rich nations can afford to be picky about how they generate electricity or how they power their motor vehicles. Poorer nations can't be so picky.