Surely you’re joking, Mr. Bush.

George Bush presented his climate change plan in a speech yesterday, on the eve of international climate talks in Paris, and it is hard to believe they are meant seriously. He proposes to allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise until 2025, yet he vows to support an international agreement to succeed Kyoto and the administration also said that he had not ruled out endorsing a cap-and-trade scheme. I suppose we should be grateful that at least he accepts that there is a problem, though in reality it does not matter much what he believes any more. Any of the three candidates to replace him will likely take a much more robust stance, though McCain’s recent proposal to temporarily eliminate gasoline tax makes one wonder.

This on the same day that Lord Stern told the Financial Times that he believed he had underestimated climate change risks in last year’s report. (See http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041620081713149198 ) Some skeptics call this report alarmist, but in reality it is a rather low-key document. See http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm to download the whole Stern Review or for a choice of two levels of executive summary.