Bush Endorses Energy Plan; Effect on Republican Candidates

In a speech today at the United States Agency for International Development, President Bush announced a plan for his administration to engage on the climate change issue in upcoming G8 talks.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Bush pledged to convene a series of meetings, beginning in the fall, with 10 to 15 countries that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions, including China and India. Each country would establish midterm national targets for reducing emissions over the next 10 to 20 years, while working together to set a longer-term goal.

The talks also would bring together industry leaders, Mr. Bush said, so that the countries could work together to pool their knowledge and promote investment in energy-efficient technologies, including solar and wind energy, clean-coal technologies and nuclear power. But each country would be free to set its own national goals, and there would be no binding international framework for enforcement.

Now, other analysts will describe how this will actually effect policy in the future, and what it means. That’s obviously not for us at this site to tackle.

But we can tackle what this means for Republican presidential candidates. If Bush had continued to hold out, Republicans who advocated making changes in this area (such as Sam Brownback, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and even Duncan Hunter) risked making themselves look incredibly (and needlessly) liberal.

Now, GOP candidates can look to engage the issue with conservative principles instead of risking anything simply by acknowledging that climate change is a problem.