China & India: Following Our Lead ... And Our Money

As I've noted before, conservatives like to use China's [1] and India's [2] increasing carbon pollution as an excuse to do nothing on global warming, Of course, all they're doing is following our dirty lead. [1]

But, as the Los Angeles Times [3] reports, they're not just following our lead. They're following our money.

At the Group of 8 summit of world leaders in June, President Bush repeated his calls for developing nations to curb their emissions of greenhouse gases ... "We all can make major strides, and yet there won't be a reduction until China and India are participants," he told reporters.

But just weeks earlier, the U.S. government had pledged to help finance one of the world's most advanced oil refineries, taking shape in Jamnagar, India. The facility ... will annually emit nearly 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide -- the major contributor to global warming -- into the atmosphere.

This is not an isolated incident, but long-standing, short-sighted policy:

The Jamnagar refinery is one of hundreds of fossil-fuel projects built with the help of U.S.-controlled funding agencies. Since 1995, when the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agreed there was a "discernible human influence" on global warming, the United States has helped finance power plants, liquefied natural gas processors, oil pipelines and the like in more than 40 countries -- in effect extending America's "carbon footprint" well past this nation's borders.

...

From 1995 to 2006, the [Export-Import] Bank and [Overseas Private Investment Corporation] provided more than $21 billion in loans and loan guarantees for oil refineries, pipeline projects, liquefied natural gas plants and electric power plants around the world.

A snapshot of the environmental impact can be seen in a sample of projects subsidized in Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, Algeria, China, Brazil, Turkey and India. Those 48 projects alone will be responsible for at least 12 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetime, or at least 600 million metric tons annually, according to a Times analysis of data provided by Friends of the Earth. The organization used data from the lending agencies' records, and emissions were calculated by analyst Richard Heede of Climate Mitigation Services, a private Colorado firm. CO2 figures were not available for more than 150 additional projects in those eight countries.

Heede, who has provided research for plaintiffs suing the banks over their lending policies, wrote in court documents that the Ex-Im Bank and OPIC were responsible for more than 7% of the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions. In 2003, he wrote, the two investment funds' projects were to blame for an amount of CO2 overseas roughly equivalent to one-third of U.S. carbon emissions.

The latest global warming bills being crafted in the Senate seek to pressure China and India by threatening trade penalties [4].

Such a stick is sensible, if there's a carrot going along with it.

But we're not giving them carrots. We're giving them lumps of coal.