July 19, 2009.  In this AP report, “India stands firm against emissions limits,” Secretary of State Clinton is quoted as saying she’s “in favor of every country doing its part to deal with the challenge of global climate change.” The problem here is Clinton, not India. India has never objected to doing its part, and it’s an insult for Clinton to imply that it has. India has only objected—as the headline says—to accepting limits.

“Doing its part” and “limits” are entirely different. If Clinton really meant “doing its part” she would not focus only “limits,” which is just a code word for “caps,” as in cap and trade. Insisting on caps has blocked agreement with India, China and Brazil ever since the Kyoto negotiations. They have said “no” for 12 years. They mean “no,” and they have good reasons. So why is Clinton being so stubborn? Why not just ask India to “do its part” and drop the caps?

Actually, the problem is not Clinton. She’s just carrying out orders. And it’s not even Al Gore, who has long said that a carbon tax is best, but caps will do. The root of the problem is a small clique of environmentalists, led by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) since the early 1990’s. They are fanatical about caps because they see them as a form of “command and control” that can be passed off as “market-based.”

But this fetish has run amok long enough. After failing for over 12 years why not try for another form of commitment? Why not have all countries commit to equal effort? Or commit to effort that is scaled by emissions per person? Equal effort would mean equal carbon taxes—something that Al Gore favors but is not good enough for EDF. All such reasonable possibilities are blocked by the cap fanatics.

India and China are right to reject caps. What if China had accepted a cap in 2000? It’s emissions had increased 27 percent in the previous decade, so EDF would have demanded that it accept a cap no higher than 27 percent for the next 10 years. But in the next 10 years, China’s enormous growth, which is raising millions out of poverty, will cause its emissions to rise 150 percent. Surely, it should have tried harder to limit emissions. But a cap of 27 percent would have done exactly what India and China fear—limit China's growth. Severely.

And how would China have explained to its people that they were being held back by a cap that limited them to the level of emissions in the United States in about 1900. The Chinese and Indians are justly outraged by such requests from the world’s biggest global-warming polluter. And to have any effect on India’s emissions of one ton per person per year, they would have to accept a cap of less than two tons—that’s nine times lower than our own emissions. India will never accept such a slap in the face.

Clinton says that the U.S. "will not do anything that would limit India's economic progress." But if that’s true, and I do think she means it, she must stop insisting on caps. The effect of a cap is unpredictable. It might not limit growth, but it might. It all depends on how fast growth will be and on many other unknowable factors. Caps are simply too risky and too insulting for countries like India and China

It’s time the environmental fanatics got out of the way and let sensible people get the job done. The climate is changing.