The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, now The Toronto Star, and many more dailies, reacted to the announcement by General Electric’s chief executive Jeffrey Immelt regarding climate change.

To Quote The Toronto Star: “Immelt runs the biggest company in America, and for that reason some environmental groups hailed his speech last week on climate change as a tipping point in the global warming debate. Immelt chose his words carefully and did not directly criticize Bush. But he left no doubt that he believes mandatory controls on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main GHG, are necessary and inevitable. And he said he would double GE’s investments in energy and environmental technologies to prepare it for what he sees as a huge global market for products that help other companies - and countries like China and India - reduce emissions of GHGs”.

The Star continued with reference to the Institutional Investors meeting covered by SustainabiliTank. info May 10, 2005 (please see LINK).

Interesting to mention in this context that already the Clinton Administration sensed that business must find self-interest in the solution. That is how the US imposed on the Kyoto meeting in 1997 the acceptance of the mechanisms that give monetary incentives to trade in carbon credits; but the Clinton Administration did not push the point within the US by submitting the KP for ratification by the Senate.

Hardly a week goes by now without somebody telling President George W. Bush that his passive approach to global warming is hopelessly behind the times. Asking industry for voluntary reductions of GHG emissions won’t work - he’s heard this even from Republican Governors like Arnold Schwartzeneger and George Pataki.

The Bush Administration looks now at initiatives by industry, perversely, as proof that it can happen without government intervention. But industry as a whole will not spend to reduce emissions in the absence of rules - in the absence of which, there is a competitive advantage to those that do nothing. It is precisely to achieve a level playing field that more and more utilities - the very companies Dick Cheney thought to let of the hook - are now calling on Congress to consider mandatory controls.

Absent a response from the White House, the hope is with Congress hammering out a good energy bill. Such a bill must stop rewarding the old polluting industries and focus instead on putting serious money behind cleaner power plants and cleaner cars. That these measures will also ease the dependence on overseas oil from insecure regions - is another persuasive benefit.

Jeffrey Immelt has become perhaps also a poster-boy of US internationalism, and perhaps the real crutch to help the US when the lack of a level playing field in international trade will also hit home - by means of countervailing taxation against the artificial cheaper energy costs of US manufactured goods.