Bush White House: Man is to blame for global warming

Alex Spillius
The Telegraph
Sep. 15, 2007

George Bush's top scientific advisor has delivered the strongest statement yet from within the US administration that greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity are to blame for climate change.

Professor John Marburger said it was more than 90 per cent likely that mankind was causing global warming and that the earth may become "unlivable" without reductions in CO2 output.

"I think there is widespread agreement on certain basics, and one of the most important is that we are producing far more CO2 from fossil fuels than we ought to be," he told the BBC.

"And it's going to lead to trouble unless we can begin to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we are burning and using in our economies."

President Bush has invited world leaders to Washington later this month to discuss climate change, and the United Nations will also debate the subject.

Mr Bush has so far admitted that human activity may be a contributory factor to climate change but refused to sign the Kyoto protocol that set targets for limiting emissions.

Although he has urged Americans to be less dependent on their cars and supported the development of alternative fuels such as ethanol, sceptics remain within the White House about the extent of human influence over rising global temperatures.

Prof Marburger's views are in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body set up by the UN to review scientific research around the world.

Describing controls on CO2 emissions as "arbitrary", he nonetheless said: "The CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere and there's no end point, it just gets hotter and hotter, and so at some point it becomes unlivable."

He said the state of the science made it difficult to justify a particular target.

"It's not clear that we'll be in a position to predict the future accurately enough to make policy confidently for a long time," he said.

James Connaughton, Mr Bush's top climate advisor, said the administration favoured finding technological solutions to cutting emissions rather than "shutting down economies".